


after you're gone

by thekatriarch



Series: Aftermath [3]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Everyone Needs Therapy, F/M, Friendship, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Mistakes were made, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-21
Updated: 2020-03-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:40:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 25,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22824214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thekatriarch/pseuds/thekatriarch
Summary: ten years after losing the love of his life and nine years after the end of the war that defined his entire life, Cassian thinks he's doing fine. His friend Leia disagrees.
Relationships: Cassian Andor & Leia Organa, Cassian Andor/Leia Organa, Cassian Andor/Original Male Character(s), Leia Organa/Han Solo
Series: Aftermath [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1627852
Comments: 14
Kudos: 17





	1. an old argument

**Author's Note:**

> if you followed me here from "what it feels like to miss someone," thanks so much for coming back, I really appreciate it. I do promise you that this time nobody dies a horrible shocking death at the end (however, I must also tell you that no one is coming back from the dead).

“Come have dinner with Ben and me,” said Leia, as he’d known she would, because she always did. 

“You’re always so eager to feed me,” he said, which was what he always said.

“It’s just that thinking about you sitting alone in the dark eating instant noodles in that awful apartment makes me so depressed,” said Leia.

“What’s wrong with my apartment?”

She looked at him, eyebrow raised. “Where do I start? It’s one room, and you barely have any furniture.”

“I have furniture,” he objected.

“You have a bedroll on the floor.”

“I have a table and a chair to eat my instant noodles at,” he countered.

“One chair,” she said. “I know how much you get paid, you know, General Andor; I approve the budget. Why won’t you move somewhere a little nicer?”

He shrugged. “What do I need a bunch of rooms for? To have somewhere to put all that furniture I don’t need?” 

“You could at least get a real bed.”

“I don’t like them,” he said. “I can’t sleep in a soft bed.”

“So you’ve said.”

“And yet you keep bringing it up.” He smiled at her. This was an old argument, a comfortable argument. They’d been having it for years by now and he didn’t expect them to stop having it any time soon.

Leia had a nice, comfortable house in a nice, comfortable neighborhood here on Chandrila, an easy walk to the unnecessarily grand (in Cassian’s opinion) buildings where the New Republic conducted its official business. 

He was here all the time, ate dinner with her and her son at least once a week, and they were so used to each other that they moved around each other in the kitchen, preparing the meal together, like they were — well, like they were married. A thought that made him deeply uncomfortable every time it occurred to him. Leia had a husband. He was just never here.

Dinner in the oven, he sat down at the kitchen table, as he always did, and only moments later, Leia started up again.

“You know you don’t have to keep living like you’re still fighting the war.”

He shrugged. “I fought the war for twenty-five years. I don’t know how to live any other way. And I’m an adult, Leia. I don’t need you to take care of me.”

“Somebody needs to take care of you,” she said. “Because you’re certainly not taking care of yourself.”

“Yes I am,” he said. “I’m fine.”

“You need someone in your life,” she said, putting a glass of wine in front of him.

He sighed. “Here we go.”

“It’s been ten years, Cass. Are you going to keep punishing yourself forever?”

“I’m not punishing myself. I just don’t… want that.”

“Do you really think Jyn would want you to spend the rest of your life alone?” she asked, sitting down across from him with a glass of her own.

“I don’t know,” he said, “and she’s not here to share her opinions on it, so why bring it up?”

She sighed and sipped her wine. “I just want you to find some happiness. You deserve it.”

“I’m happy,” he said.

She gave him a look. “Cassian. Not being suicidal anymore is not the same thing as being happy.”

He shrugged. “Close enough.”

“No,” she said. “Not close enough. You deserve to be happy, really happy.”

“You know, I don’t go poking around in your personal life,” he said.

“You don’t _have_ a personal life, Cass. That’s the problem.”

 _“You_ think it’s a problem. I don’t. I don’t want that. I never wanted it with anyone but her. I’m fine the way I am.”

“No you’re not,” she said. “I hate seeing you so lonely.”

 _“I’m_ lonely?” he said, irritated. “You’re the one who’s lonely, Princess.”

“What are you talking about?” she asked, stiffening.

“Why do you really want me over here every day? Because you’re so worried about poor Cassian? Or because your shiftless loser husband is never around?”

Leia’s face went stone hard for a moment. “You can be such an asshole sometimes, Andor,” she said. She stood up and went to the oven, opening it like she was checking on dinner, and then slammed it closed.

He ought to back off, but he was so irritated with her, that he just couldn’t. “Where is he now?”

“He’s… busy. He’s working, you know, it’s not like he’s just—”

“Working,” said Cassian. “Right. Racing starships, what a vital fucking contribution. He should be here helping to raise his kid.”

“Can you just not start on Han, please? You’ve never liked him—”

“So it’s fine for you to sit there and criticize my life and meddle and tell me I’m not happy, but _Han,_ oh we can’t possibly question why Han doesn’t want to raise his own son—”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Leia, coldly. “You have no idea what it takes to be married or a parent, because you’re so fucking scared of getting hurt again that you won’t even—”

 _“You_ don’t know what _you’re_ talking about,” he snapped. 

“It’s complicated,” said Leia. “Marriage is complicated. You know, my parents hardly ever saw each other. My father was gone all the time and my mother was running Alderaan. It didn’t mean they didn’t love each other, and it _didn’t_ mean my father wasn’t helping to take care of me.” Her voice had taken on the edge that it only did when she talked about her parents; an edge that very few people ever heard.

“Your father was trying to win a war,” said Cassian. “Not a fucking spaceship race. There’s a difference.”

“You just don’t understand,” she said, sitting back down with a sigh. He was starting to feel badly, now. “He’s not… he’s never been able to stay in one place. It just isn’t him. I’d rather he be out there and happy than stuck here and resenting me for it.”

Maybe you shouldn’t be married to someone who would resent living with you, thought Cassian, but he didn’t say anything out loud.

She looked up at him, though, and he knew that she knew what he was thinking. “I wish you wouldn’t read my mind,” he told her.

“It’s not mind-reading,” she said. “It’s more like… You know how you can sort of tell how someone’s feeling from their body language? It’s like that. I’m just a little better at it than most people. And I’m not doing it on purpose.” She smiled at him, reached across the table and took his hand. “You know you’re one of my favorite people in the whole universe,” she said. “Can we call a truce?”

“Of course.”

“Good.” She smiled. “But I still think you should just try going on a date, just once. I met someone—”

He put his hands over his ears.

“You’d like him!” said Leia. “He’s from your homeworld. He’s a scientist.”

“A scientist from Fest?” he said, skeptically. “Fest doesn’t have scientists.”

“When was the last time you visited home?” she asked, tilting her head at him.

He shrugged. “What’s there to visit?” Everyone he’d ever known back there was long dead.

“Well, Marcius is doing some incredible work there. Environmental cleanup. There’s been a 200% improvement in the air quality there since he started. You should go see for yourself. You won’t even recognize the place.”

“Then it wouldn’t be like visiting home, would it?”

“You are impossible, Andor.”

The front door banged open and slammed closed, and Leia’s nine-year-old son appeared in the entryway. 

“Ben Solo,” said Leia. “I know you did not just slam that door.”

“Sorry,” said Ben. “I didn’t know you were home.”

“Me not being home is not a reason for you to act like you grew up in a barnyard,” said Leia.

Ben rolled his eyes. “What’s so bad about growing up in a barnyard, Mom? Don’t be a snob. Hey Cassian.”

“Hello, Uncle Cassian,” Leia corrected him.

“He’s not my uncle,” Ben grumbled. “May I go to my room now please, Your Highness?”

“Dinner’s in ten minutes.”

“Yeah, okay.” The boy wandered off.

Leia gestured helplessly after him. “When did my little boy turn into this… stranger? I thought I’d have a few more years. He’s not even a teenager yet. Oh, don’t you say anything,” she added sharply.

“I wasn’t going to.”

“You were thinking it pretty loudly,” she said. “His father should be here.”

“He’s a good kid,” said Cassian. “But he’s not wrong about the barnyard thing. You are kind of a snob.”

“I am not!” she said. “Do you really think so?”

He laughed. “You’re spending too much time around rich people these days. I liked you better when you were poor.”

“What’s it called when you’re a snob in the opposite direction?” she asked.

“When you hate rich people? That’s normal. If you weren’t brought up so rich you’d know that.”

“You obnoxious thing,” she said. “You’re not exactly living in poverty these days, you know, Andor. Although you’d never know it, from your apartment.”

He laughed, despite himself.

“You think Ben is okay?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. He doesn’t get to see his dad very much, and I’m… Sometimes I don’t think I’m very good at this motherhood stuff.”

“Of course you are,” he said. “You’re a great mother.”

“I don’t know if I am,” she said. “I’m always so busy with work and everything.”

“So were your parents,” he said. “You turned out okay.”

“My parents weren’t as screwed up as I am,” she said. “I don’t think my mom ever had to kill anyone, and that’s the least of it. I don’t know. Sometimes I just don’t think I know what I’m doing.”

“You remember what you told me the day I got promoted to general?” he said. “You told me that nobody knows what they’re doing. You just do the best you can.”

She smiled, wry. “And when you fuck up, you get people killed.”

“Probably not in this case,” he said.

“Probably,” she said. “Hey, I was pretty wise for a kid.”

He laughed. “Well, you were quoting your father, but yeah, you were. And you still are.”

She stood up to get the food out of the oven. “Does that mean you’ll take my advice and go have a drink with Marcius?”

“You’re impossible, Organa.”


	2. we're all just accidents

“Are you and my mom having an affair?” Ben looked at him intently from under his shaggy black hair.

“No,” said Cassian. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“It’s not ridiculous. You’re over here all the time.”

“If we were having an affair,” said Cassian, “we’d want to keep it a secret, wouldn’t we? So I wouldn’t be over here at all.”

“I guess that makes sense,” said Ben, reluctantly. “Do you _want_ to have an affair with her?”

“What? No.”

“I bet my dad would come home if he thought Mom was sleeping with you,” he said.

Cassian had no idea how to respond to this statement. Was it normal for a nine-year-old to know about this kind of thing? Ben had always been a little bit of an oddball, but Cassian was definitely not prepared to have this conversation. Cassian rarely spent time with Ben without Leia there, but Leia was running late and he’d gotten here before her.

“I’m sure he would,” said Cassian. “But she’s not.”

“Not _yet,”_ said Ben, fixing him with a stare.

“Now you’re really being ridiculous,” said Cassian.

“Yeah, I’m just messing with you,” said Ben. “You don’t like my dad very much, do you? And he doesn’t like you, either. How come?”

“You’d have to ask him,” said Cassian. “And I don’t think your mother would be very happy about this conversation, do you?”

Ben rolled his eyes. “The _princess_ is never happy. All she ever does is nitpick at me. I can’t do anything right, according to her.”

Cassian had no idea what to say to this. “Your mother loves you,” he said, awkwardly.

“Yeah, I know. Whatever. What was _your_ mom like?” he asked suddenly.

Cassian shifted in his seat, awkward. “I don’t know,” he said. “She died when I was really little.”

“Oh. What happened?”

His mother’s eyes, open and staring at nothing. Green eyes. She’d had green eyes. The roof of their house caved in, the side of her head caved in, and Cassian, six years old, biting down on his hands so he wouldn’t cry, because six was too old to cry. He shoved the unwanted memory away. “It’s not a very nice story,” he said. “I grew up in a warzone.”

“Really?” said Ben. “Mom never tells me anything about the war. What was it like?”

With his cool, rational mind, Cassian noticed that his palms were sweating and his heart was beating faster than usual. Everything’s fine, he told himself. You’re at Leia’s. The war is over. But he started cataloging exits anyway. The front door. The back door. The big window facing the street. You’d have to throw something through it to break the glass. The side table would probably work. The window in the kitchen could be opened but it was a little small. He could shove Ben through it but probably couldn’t get through himself. He didn’t carry a blaster anymore, but there were knives in the kitchen. You could do some damage with a kitchen knife, even if they were wearing armor—

He took a deep breath. Calm down, Andor.

Ben was staring at him, interested. “Are you okay?”

“What? Yes.”

“Do you have nightmares?” asked Ben. “Mom has nightmares. She thinks I don’t know, but I do.”

“She went through a lot,” said Cassian. “Things like that stay with you.”

“Things like _what?_ No one will tell me anything! I just want to know.”

“Why?” Why would you ever want this shit in your head, he wondered.

“My parents never would have met if it weren’t for the Death Star and everything,” said Ben. “So I wouldn’t even exist. But it’s like it’s this huge secret. I just want to understand why I exist.”

“Nobody exists for a _reason,”_ said Cassian. “We’re all just accidents, really. Or a series of coincidences.”

Ben frowned. “That’s not what Uncle Luke says. Uncle Luke says there’s no such thing as coincidences, that everything is connected through the—”

“Yes, I know what your uncle says,” said Cassian. “That’s fine for him. I believe in things I can see and touch.”

“Well… will you tell me about it?”

He shook his head. “The reason we don’t talk about it,” he said, “is because we want to forget about it. It wasn’t exciting. It was just ugly, and scary.”

“You were scared?” said Ben, sounding surprised.

“All the time.”

“Of dying?”

“When I was your age. But if you live with death long enough, it stops seeming as scary. Sometimes it’s worse to be the one that survives. And that’s exactly the kind of thing your mother doesn’t want me telling you.”

“I won’t tell her.”

The front door opened, and Cassian jumped like he’d just heard a blaster shot, instantly moving to put himself between the door and the kid. But of course it was just Leia coming home, and she was accompanied by a tall man with dark skin and short curly hair.

“Cassian!” said Leia. “I’m sorry I’m running so late, I got caught up at the office and then I ran into my friend here, and I hope you don’t mind, I invited him to join us. This is Dr. Marcius Dunn. Marcius, my dear friend Cassian Andor.”

Oh hell. Marcius, the scientist. Just what he needed right now, on the threshold of a goddamn panic attack.

“Nice to meet you,” said Dr. Marcius Dunn, holding out a hand. Cassian shook it.

“Yes,” he said. “Nice to meet you, too.” He shot Leia a look and she smiled at him, smug and pleased with herself. 

“And of course this is my son, Ben,” said Leia.

“Hello Ben. I’ve heard so much about you,” said the man.

“Hello,” said Ben.

“Have a seat, make yourself at home,” said Leia. “Wine?”

“Yes, thank you, that would be very nice.”

“I’ll come with you,” said Cassian, following Leia into the kitchen. He needed to get out of that room before he melted down.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Princess?” he asked, the moment they were alone and he felt confident the other man wouldn’t hear. “You just happened to run into your friend and invite him to dinner, did you?”

“I really did run into him, Cassian. I promise you, it was a coincidence.”

“I have it on good authority that Uncle Luke doesn’t believe in coincidences,” he said.

“That’s a wonderful point,” she said. “Maybe it was meant to be. But I didn’t plan it in advance, I promise you.”

“Leia,” he said, “I know you mean well, but this is pretty over the line. And this is a really, really bad time.”

“What’s wrong?” she said, frowning at him. “You look like you’ve been counting exits.”

“I have been.”

“Did something happen? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine!” he snapped, a little harsher than he meant to be.

“Here,” she said. “Cold water.” She wet a towel and wiped his face with it. “Deep, slow breaths. What happened?”

“Nothing. I don’t know. Ben was asking questions.”

She sighed. “He’s so curious. I was the same way. Are you feeling a little better?” She set the wet towel on the back of his neck. He nodded. “You can get through one dinner,” she said. “I believe in you.”

“Leia.”

“It’s just dinner,” she said, pouring the wine. “Relax and enjoy yourself for once in your life.”

“You know I can’t do that,” he hissed, and she put his glass in his hand.

“You can stay in here until you calm down,” she said. “But you know you’re going to have to join us eventually. I can’t very well kick him out when I just invited him here.”

He closed his eyes and nodded. “Okay,” he said. “I’m okay.” One dinner. He could get through one dinner. He wouldn’t even have to say anything, because Leia would do all the talking. He went to the sink and ran cold water over his hands and took a deep breath. This was fine. He’d be fine. He touched his cold hands to his face and his neck. It helped. “Okay,” he said.

They returned to the sitting room and Leia offered the newcomer a glass. “I was just telling Cassian the other day about all the incredible work you’ve done to clean up Fest,” said Leia. “It really is like a new planet.”

“There’s still a long way to go,” said Marcius Dunn. “A long way. The conditions there were so bad for so long. It’s going to take years. And unfortunately, the economy still relies heavily on the industries that created the problem in the first place, so until something changes there, it’s going to be an ongoing struggle.”

“I know,” said Leia. “I’ve been trying to get this economic development bill for Rim worlds through the Senate for what feels like a thousand years.”

Cassian snorted. “That’s a losing battle. You want Core people to give up their own wealth to help a bunch of poor Festians? Never happen.”

“You are such a pessimist,” said Leia. “Whatever happened to ‘rebellions are built on hope?’”

“The rebellion’s over. I never said that _governments_ were built on hope.”

“All right, all right,” said Leia. “That’s probably enough politics for the night. I’m afraid Cassian is un-convincible. Not sure why you still work for the Republic if you think it’s such a pointless exercise.”

“Have to do something,” he said with a shrug. “Anyway, most of the alternatives to the Republic are worse.”

“What do you do for the Republic?” asked Dunn.

“Nothing very interesting,” Cassian lied.

“He’s a spy,” piped up Ben from the corner where he was playing a handheld game.

“I am not a spy,” said Cassian. “Letting your imagination run away with you.” This was technically not a lie, as he hadn’t done any real spy work in well over a decade.

“Okay,” said Ben. “But you never give a straight answer about your job, so why would you do that unless you were a spy?”

“Ben,” said Leia. “Why don’t you and I go start dinner? Your uncle’s probably starved, you know he never eats a thing.”

“He’s not my uncle,” said Ben, sulkily, but he got up and followed his mother into the kitchen.

Cassian started to stand up, too, but Leia tossed a glance over her shoulder and said, “you stay where you are. I’ll be back out in just a few minutes.”

He sent her a look that was half angry and half a plea not to leave him alone with this man she was trying to set him up with, but she ignored it and went into the kitchen.

“Is she always so unsubtle?” asked Dunn.

“No,” said Cassian. “Not really.” He stared at the carpet, following the simple geometric patterns of it with his eyes. 

“I was going to say. I don’t know that many politicians yet.”

“Most of them are a lot worse than her,” he said, taking a larger sip of his wine than usual. He still didn’t like to drink much, but Leia didn’t like to drink alone, so he could stand to have a single glass when he was here. Normally he drank it very slowly over the course of the evening, but he was nervous now. She’d just abandoned him here when he’d been counting on her to keep her friend entertained. 

Goddamn meddling princess.

“I have to confess,” said Dunn, “I did ask her to introduce us. You’re the most famous Festian in the galaxy. I couldn’t pass up the chance.”

Cassian made a noncommittal sound. He hated the fact that people knew his name. But Rogue One was famous, and he was the only one of them left. People wrote books about them, and there were several terrible holovids that were “inspired by” the events. He hadn’t watched them, but Ben had described some of the plots to him, and they got just about everything wrong. In one of them, Galen came with them to Scarif and died heroically protecting his daughter, and with his dying breath, he told Cassian “take care of my little girl.” It was insulting. Jyn hadn't needed him to take care of her. Jyn could take care of herself.

Don’t think about Scarif. Don’t think about Jyn. He took a breath and cast around for something else to talk about.

“You don’t look like you’re from Fest,” he said. “Or sound like it.”

“We left when I was still young,” replied Dunn. “Not long after the clone army landed.”

“Ah,” said Cassian. “So you had money.” Don’t think about the day the clone army landed, he told himself firmly. Don’t. It’s over. But his hands were shaking anyway. The front door. The back door. The big window facing the street. The front door, the back door, the big window facing the street.

“Some. My parents were both medical doctors, so they were able to leave.”

“Must have been nice,” said Cassian, trying to repress the resentment he couldn’t help but feel. And Leia thought he would _like_ this person?

“I didn’t think so at the time,” said Dunn. “We were in a refugee camp for a while. But now that I know what it would have been like if we stayed… yes. It was nice.”

“Just about anything would be nicer than that,” said Cassian, curt. “I’d rather not talk about it, if you don’t mind.”

“Of course,” said Dunn. “I’m sorry.”

They lapsed into quiet. Cassian couldn’t think of a single thing to say. 


	3. the fight

Dinner passed uneventfully and pleasantly. Cassian seemed fine after all. He was quieter than usual, but he’d always been like that around people he didn’t know. He was definitely more than a little annoyed at her and she was going to hear about it later, but that wasn’t a problem. They were frequently annoyed with each other. They argued almost constantly, and they could both be prickly and lash out. They always made up, usually within a few minutes. 

When Marcius left, she turned to Cassian. “So?” she said. “What do you think?”

“What do I _think?”_ said Cassian. “What do I _think?_ I think I’m so fucking angry at you I can’t see straight, that’s what I fucking think.”

She took a step back, surprised by the vehemence. She felt a little tendril of curiosity and surprise from Ben, and instantly snapped, “Ben, go to bed.”

“How could you _do_ that to me?” Cassian yelled. “Why can’t you just mind your own goddamn business for once?”

He was so much angrier than she’d thought he was. She had thought she had a good read on his feelings; she had been paying attention, sensing what she thought was his emotional state, but she hadn’t felt anything like this from him until just now. She hadn’t realized that it was possible for him to hide his feelings from her that well; she hadn’t realized it was possible for _anyone_ to hide their feelings from her that well.

She tried to say something, but she was so shocked that nothing came out.

“I have told you, and told you, and _told you,_ I don’t want this! I don’t want any of that shit, and I certainly don’t want to go back to fucking Fest and see a 200% improvement in the fucking air quality of the _fucking graveyard where my mother is buried.”_

“I’m— I’m sorry,” she said, stunned. “I didn’t mean to… I’m sorry, Cassian, I just — Ben I told you to _go to bed!”_ She watched her son slink off. He was probably going to keep listening, but there wasn’t anything she could do about that.

“You just, you just,” said Cassian. “You _just_ were thinking about yourself and not me, once again.”

“I can’t imagine having a home and not wanting to be there,” she said.

“No,” he said. “No, don’t you dare, don’t you fucking _dare_ make this about you and about Alderaan. I am _sorry_ that you don’t have a home and I am _sorry_ that it happened because of me—"

“It didn’t!” she said, “I’ve never blamed you, Cass, not for a _second.”_

“I’m not you!” he shouted. “You know I watched my mother die when I was six fucking years old! You _know_ that! I don’t have any good memories of the fucking place except the day I finally left!” And suddenly all the fight seemed to go out of him and he slumped down on the sofa and started to cry.

“Oh Cassian,” she gasped. “I’m so sorry.” She knelt down on the floor in front of him and wrapped her arms around him, holding him against her while he sobbed like a child.

When the storm abated, she gently wiped his face dry with her sleeve and kissed his forehead, and then it suddenly struck her from the way he was looking at her that he was thinking about kissing her, and she pulled back and said, “don’t.”

Something flickered over his face and he said, “I wasn’t going to,” and she knew it was true. It was just a stray thought, not something he was seriously considering. Cassian might not like her husband, but he had always respected her marriage.

“I’m going to go home,” he said.

“Stay the night,” she said, and he gave her an odd look. “I’m afraid if I let you walk out that door while you’re still so angry at me, I’ll never see you again, and Cass, I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

He sighed. “You’d be fine. I’m the one who’d have nobody. I just need to go home now.”

“Will you forgive me, eventually?”

“Eventually,” he said, with a little ghost of a smile.

When he was gone, she took a deep breath and let it out, shaky.

“Are you in love with Uncle Cassian?” came Ben’s voice from behind her. She jumped. How had she not realized he was standing there?

“What are you talking about?” she asked, wiping her own damp eyes.

“Kind of a yes or no question, Mom. Because I think you are, and I think you should go for it.”

“Ben, you’re being absurd. Your Uncle Cassian and I are very good friends, and we have been for a very long time, that’s all.”

“I just don’t think it’s fair,” said Ben. “Dad’s never here, and it’s not fair to you. Why isn’t he ever here? Doesn’t he love us?”

“Of course he does. He loves us both very much. It’s just really hard for him to stay in one place very long.”

“Aren’t parents supposed to make sacrifices for their kids?” asked Ben.

“Ben, honey,” she said through tears, “you’re too young to be worrying about this.”

“I worry about everything,” he said. “Especially you, Mom. I don’t want you to be lonely.”

“Oh sweetie,” she said, hugging him. “I’m never lonely while I have you.”

“Yeah, but I’m going to grow up,” he said. “And then I probably won’t be around very much. You know I want to go learn to be a Jedi with Uncle Luke. And then you’ll be all alone, if Dad doesn’t come home. And he’s a lot older than you, so what if he dies? Uncle Cassian is—”

“Ben, stop it. I love your father.”

“I bet he has a girlfriend out there,” said Ben, darkly.

“Ben! Of course he doesn’t. Where are you getting these ideas?”

“Maybe not yet, but what if he meets someone he really likes and he never comes home again?”

“That’s not going to happen. You’re getting all worked up over nothing, honey.” She kissed his head. “You get that from me. Your dad always says I worry too much.”

“But how do you _know?”_ said Ben. “How can you be sure he won’t?”

“Because I love him, and I trust him. Your father’s a good man, Ben. If you can’t believe in him, believe in me. Do you think I would stay married to someone who didn’t love me?”

“No,” he said. “I guess not. Can I sleep in your room tonight?”

“You’re a little old for that, don’t you think?” She kissed the top of his head. “But maybe just this once.” She didn’t really want to go to bed alone anyway.

When Ben fell asleep, she got up out of bed and went in slipper feet to her home office, where she called Han. He didn’t answer, so she left a message.

“Hi sweetheart,” she said, quietly. “I guess you’re busy. I just wanted to say hi. Ben’s asleep.” She paused a moment. She wanted to ask him to come home. To tell him that Ben thought his father didn’t love him. But she couldn’t do it. So she just said goodnight, and ended the call.


	4. who ever said life was fair?

He didn’t really want to go back to his apartment, but anywhere else would just get him in more trouble. If he didn’t go there, he’d end up at some bar, find someone to go home with, and wake up tomorrow hating himself. It wasn’t worth it.

When he got back, he did what he always did, which was search every corner to make sure there was no one there, and then he checked that the windows hadn’t been opened, and then he went back and checked that he’d locked the door behind him. And then he checked the windows again.

There never was anyone there, and the windows never had been opened, and he'd never forgotten to lock the door behind him, but he had to check anyway. It was a particularly bad night, so he had to check the door a few more times before he felt safe.

Then he went to the little box that he kept hidden at the back of his closet, and he opened it up and took Jyn’s crystal out, and he sat down on the floor of the closet and held the crystal in his hand, letting his fingers run over it. He knew every millimeter of the crystal by touch. The smooth sides and the uneven surface of the engraving. The tiny chip near the base. He always felt better when he had it in his hand.

He had begged her to stay behind, but she had insisted. She had to see it through to the end, she’d said. So she’d gone down to that moon, with Leia and the others, and everyone came back, except her. “You worry too much,” she’d said. “You know I’ll always come back to you.”

But she hadn’t.

Leia was probably right. It had been ten years. Most people would have moved on by now. But he couldn’t; didn’t want to. He didn’t want to love someone else, and he didn’t want to be happy. He wanted Jyn to be alive.

He passed the pad of his thumb across the engraving on the crystal. It had been Jyn’s mother’s, a long time ago. Jyn had always worn it; he’d never seen her without it. Leia had taken it off of Jyn’s corpse on Endor and brought it to him.

What would happen to the crystal when he died? Who did he have to leave it to?

He wasn’t sure exactly how old he was, but it was around forty. He’d never planned on living this long. Sometimes he still found himself wishing that he’d died on Scarif after all, like he’d planned on. Sometimes it’s worse to be the one that lives. He _really_ should not have said that to a nine-year-old.

He dreamed about Jyn that night, as he often did. “You’re here,” he said, “you’re alive.”

“Of course I’m alive,” said Jyn. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I thought you died,” he said. “On Endor.”

“No,” said Jyn. “Don’t be silly. You know I’ll always come back to you.”

* * * * *

What he regretted the most about his fight with Leia was that absurd moment when he’d wanted to kiss her. He never would have actually done it, but for just a moment he’d wanted to, and she had known that he wanted to, and now nothing would ever be the same between them.

He remembered kissing Leia when she was eighteen. They’d barely known each other back then; she’d been a teenager with a crush, and he’d been bored and curious to see how far she would take their flirtation. He was too old for her, and he wouldn’t have kissed her himself, but he’d flirted with her a little, and then she, full of that confidence she’d always had about everything, had stood up on her tiptoes and pressed her mouth to his, and he’d let her do it, and he’d put his hands on her little waist and pulled her closer. He’d thought better of it before things went much further, but he’d been pretty sure at the time that she would have let him get away with a lot more, if he’d wanted to. 

It felt like such a long time ago, now.

He stopped by her office toward the end of the day, asked if she was in. Her aide called back and asked, and he was admitted.

“Hi,” she said. “Does this mean you’re not mad at me anymore?”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you like that. I was—”

“It’s forgiven,” she said. “If you’ll forgive me for being such a thoughtless jerk. All these years I’ve prided myself on my empathy, but you were right. I was thinking about what I want, and I should have listened when you told me no, and I’m sorry that I didn’t.”

He sighed. “Can I sit?”

“Of course.”

He fell into the chair. “I know you’re right,” he said. “I know I should… move on. You’re right that she wouldn’t want me to live the way I do. I don’t know why I can’t. Just about everyone I ever cared about is dead, and I’m not hanging on to any of them like this. I never wanted to fall in love in the first place. I _never_ thought I’d still be alive and she’d be gone. It should have been me that died.”

“Oh Cassian,” said Leia. “She wouldn’t want you to feel that way.”

“I know.” His eyes felt hot, and he blinked them rapidly. “She told me she didn’t want to be the reason I wanted to live. I just miss her. I miss her so much all the time, and I hate that even when she was alive, I was always missing her. We never really got to be _together.”_

“It’s not fair,” said Leia.

“Who ever said life was fair?” he asked. “I’m really sorry I swore at you in front of your kid, Lei. That was fucked up.”

“I’m sure he’s heard worse at school,” said Leia. “He asked me if I’m in love with you, if you can believe that. Leave it to Han Solo’s kid to see two people having an argument like that and come to _that_ conclusion.”

He looked at her sidelong. “He asked me if we were having an affair,” he said. He had not been planning on telling Leia this, but if Ben had brought it up to her himself, he might as well.

Leia looked pensive. “I don’t know where he’s _getting_ this stuff. But… we sort of _are,_ aren’t we? I mean not… obviously we’re not sleeping together, but you were right, Cassian, I’ve been sort of… depending on you, because Han’s never home. I kept trying to tell myself I was just worried about you being lonely, and I _am,_ but I’m also… I’m lonely, too, and it’s a lot less lonely when you’re around. Is that awful?”

“It’s awful that he’s putting you in that position,” said Cassian. “Why don’t you ask him to come home?”

She hesitated. “What if he doesn’t?” she asked in a tiny voice. “What if I ask him to and he says no, he doesn’t want to?”

“Well,” said Cassian. “Then you’ll know. I’d always rather know.”

“You’re braver than I am, maybe,” she said.

“No one’s braver than you are,” he said, and she smiled at him.

“Are you feeling better today?” she said. “I shouldn’t have sprung Marcius on you anyway, but I never ever would have done it if I knew you were having a bad day.”

“I’m better,” he said. “It wasn’t that bad. I’m okay now.”

“Cass,” she said, “have you ever considered, you know, talking to someone?”

“I’m talking to you,” he said.

“I mean a professional.”

“No,” he said. “Are you crazy? No.”

“It did help,” she said. “When I did it. There’s treatments, you know, for trauma.”

“Trauma,” he scoffed.

“Yes, Cassian, trauma. What do _you_ call it?” 

“‘Trauma’ is a rich person word for what the rest of us call life,” he said dismissively.

“Well, let’s not get into another fight so soon,” she said. “Let’s at least wait until tomorrow.”

Leia’s comm buzzed. “Senator?” said her aide. “Dr. Dunn is here to see you.”

“Oh shit,” said Leia. “I completely forgot he was coming by.” She thumbed her comm on. “I’ll just be a few minutes, Ada, thank you.” Turning the comm back off she looked at Cassian. “I’m sorry I don’t have a way for you to sneak out the back.”

“I’ll manage,” he said, standing up and kissing her on the cheek. “I’ll see you, okay? Try to stay out of trouble.” It’s what he used to say to her years ago, before Scarif, when she’d just been the princess who kissed him occasionally. “I don’t know if I can make time to rescue you.”

She laughed. “I haven’t heard you say that in a long time. And I still don’t need you to rescue me.”

He opened the door and stepped out, nodding to Marcius Dunn in the lobby, who looked surprised to see him, but like it was a good surprise. “Cassian,” he said, standing up and offering his hand. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“Hello,” he said. “Just on my way out.”

“Come on in, Marcius,” said Leia, and Cassian went out into the hall.

“Cassian!” He turned and Marcius Dunn was following him. “Look, I know this is a little forward, and I know Leia sort of sprung me on you last night, but I’d really like to see you again. Can I take you to dinner tonight?”

Cassian stared at him for a moment, and then heard himself say “okay.” He was probably more surprised by this response than Marcius Dunn was; Dunn must have at least thought there was a chance he’d agree or he wouldn’t have asked.

Marcius Dunn smiled a broad smile. “Great,” he said. “Great. Seven?”

“Okay,” he said again, unable to say anything else.

Dunn suggested a meeting place, and he agreed, and then Dunn smiled at him again and excused himself to get back to his meeting with Leia.

What had just happened?

He walked briskly down the hall and out into the courtyard, where he found a place to sit and stare at nothing, feeling faintly panicky. Why in the hell had he said yes? Now he had to _go._ On a _date._

Could he cancel it? He didn’t have any way to reach Dunn. He could call Leia and ask her to do it for him, but that was a very terrible idea for a number of reasons, not the least of them her confession that they were, sort of, having an affair.

Okay. This was no big deal. It was one dinner. Marcius Dunn had caught him by surprise, and he’d agreed without thinking about it. They’d have dinner and then he’d go home and then he’d never have to see the man again.


	5. I'm not over it and I never will be

Marcius Dunn looked very good, and it was making Cassian feel vaguely ill. Why had he agreed to this, again? What had he been thinking? But here he was, sitting in a restaurant with this man, who was actually very attractive, trying to think of something to say and coming up with nothing.

“Is everything all right?” asked Dunn.

“Yes,” he said. “No. I guess maybe I should tell you I haven’t actually been on a date in… well, maybe ever.”

“Never?” he repeated.

He shook his head. “Not really. Not, you know, like this. It just wasn’t something that existed, you know, during the war.”

“The war’s been over for nine years,” said Marcius Dunn, and Cassian nodded, fidgeting.

“Well, that’s the other thing,” he said. “I was in love with someone, and she died. And I’m not over it and I never will be, so you should probably know that.”

“I see,” said Marcius. “So if you don’t mind me asking, why’d you agree to go out with me?”

“I don’t know,” said Cassian. “I was pretty surprised when I said yes.”

“So was I,” said Marcius, smiling. He _was_ nice to look at. Maybe Cassian could manage one date.

He was tempted to get extremely drunk, but he knew he’d feel worse if he did, so he drank water. “I’ll probably be very boring,” he said. “I don’t have anything to talk about. All I do is work, and I don’t like to talk about work.”

“Because you’re a spy?” Marcius said, raising an eyebrow like he was joking.

He smiled despite himself, looking down. “If I were a spy, I’d have a plausible, boring fake job to talk about. No, I’m not a spy anymore.”

“But you were, during the war.”

“For a while. But you know who I am, so you must have already known that.” 

“You didn’t go on dates then, like, undercover?”

He surprised himself a little by smiling. “It’s a lot less sexy than it looks in those stupid holovids,” he said. It wasn’t a bad idea, though, he thought, to treat this as if it were part of a mission. It made him feel less nervous. He knew how to do this. “Every once in a while you might do stuff like that, but not very often. It’s mostly… well. It’s mostly not good dinner conversation.”

“No,” said Dunn. “I suppose it isn’t.”

“What were you doing back then?” asked Cassian. “During the war?” 

“I was studying, mostly. To do what I do now.”

“Cleaning up garbage planets?”

“My dream was always to go back to Fest,” he said. “I barely remembered it, I was so young when we left, but I always thought of it as home. We moved around so much, you know. Now I’m finally back home, but it’s like I’m a stranger. People look at me the way you’re looking at me right now.” He smiled, rueful. “Like I’m an imposter.”

“You don’t sound Festian,” said Cassian.

“You said that last night,” said Marcius. “I never learned any Festian as a kid. I wish I had.”

“My father was a nationalist,” said Cassian, surprised to find himself volunteering any information. “He thought Basic was, you know, imperialism.”

“So you didn’t speak Basic growing up?”

“Not much. We’d get in trouble if we spoke Festian in school, but I didn’t go to school for very long.” The school, along with most of the buildings in his neighborhood, had been destroyed by Republic bombs when he was six. “I had to learn it anyway since it’s what the stormtroopers spoke,” he said. “Had to be able to understand what they were saying. But I never spoke it much until I left.”

“Fest is pretty unusual in that respect,” said Dunn. “That there are still so many people who speak the old language. Most of the old human languages are just gone.”

“Yeah,” said Cassian. “My father said that all the time.” Why was he talking so much about his father? He took a drink of water and wished he’d ordered a real drink after all.

There was a pause. “What did you dream about?” asked Marcius.

“What do you mean?”

“I was dreaming of going home to Fest; what did you hope for?”

He wasn’t sure how to answer. The truth was, he’d spent most of his life assuming he would die soon; then for a little while he’d dreamed of surviving the war and making a life with Jyn somewhere, and since she died, he didn’t really think about the future at all. He shook his head. “Just… for the war to end, I guess.”

“And since then?”

“And since then… I don’t know.”

It wasn’t actually that bad. They ended up talking about Fest a lot, in part because Cassian couldn’t think of much else to talk about. It was strange, because he hadn’t talked to anyone about his homeworld in so long. There never seemed to be any point in talking about it, or even thinking about it, because he wasn’t planning on going back. There wasn’t anything left for him there, or at least he hadn’t thought there was. He had no living family that he knew of, and he didn’t think anyone from the resistance cell he’d grown up in was still alive, either. He was alone. So why go back?

But it was interesting to hear about what was going on there now. Marcius seemed really passionate about his work, which made him interesting to listen to, and he found himself starting to relax and maybe even enjoy himself, a little, which was disorienting, but not terrible. 

After dinner, they were walking the same way, so they walked next to each other for a few blocks, and Cassian started worrying again, and fell quiet.

“I’m, uh, up that way,” he said, when they reached the corner where he needed to break off to get back to his apartment.

“Oh,” said Marcius. “I guess this is goodnight?”

“Yeah,” said Cassian, looking at his feet, feeling awkward and shy and foolish. “Yeah I guess so.”

“I’m here for a few more weeks,” said Marcius. “Do you think… could I see you again?”

He hesitated for a moment. “Okay,” he said. “Except the princess is going to be so smug about it. She’ll be unbearable now.”

“I can’t imagine that,” said Marcius.

“That’s because you haven’t known her for fifteen years,” said Cassian. “She’s still on her best behavior for you.” He looked up at Marcius with a little bit of a smile, and Marcius bent down to kiss him.

He let it happen, just a little, and then he pulled away and looked down, more awkward than ever. “Okay,” he said. “Okay, goodnight. I’ll, um, I’ll see you later.”

He walked back home slowly. It was a nice night and the air was just starting to cool. The stars were coming out; in the Core, you could usually see some stars even in cities, because there were just so many. At home, you could only see the stars when the power was out, and even then, they were so far out on the edge of the Rim that depending on the time of year, you might not see many at all. He felt a little twist of some emotion that might have been homesickness.

He’d been expecting it, but he felt a little shaken up by the kiss anyway. It wasn’t awful. He wished it had been awful. He wished he didn’t like this man at all, but he did, a little, maybe. Maybe. He wished he’d said no, he didn’t want to see him again. But he’d said yes. And he did want to, a little. And that felt like a betrayal. 

He and Jyn had never gotten to go on a date. Even if they could have found the time, it never would have occurred to either of them to do it, because neither of them had ever lived in a world where dates existed.

Back in his apartment, after he carefully checked for intruders as he always did, he went and sat down with Jyn’s crystal and ran his fingers over the engraving like he always did. Sometimes, when he held the crystal and closed his eyes, he could almost feel her there, as if she were sitting next to him. He could almost smell her, almost feel her touch on the back of his neck. Jyn, he thought, is it okay? There were tears burning behind his eyelids, and he took a breath, let it out in a shaky sigh. Jyn, he thought. Come back. Please just come back. I need you.

He dreamed about her again that night. He almost always did, if he didn’t put the crystal back in its box before he fell asleep.

“I miss you,” he told her. “Don’t go. Stay with me.”

“You know I can’t,” she said. “I have to see it through, Cassian. I have to see it through.”

“No,” he said. “No, stay with me. Stay with me.”

She touched his face. She was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. “I’m already gone, Cassian,” she said gently. “I can’t come back.”

“Please,” he said. “Please.”

“I can’t. I would if I could, but it can’t be done. I’m gone.”

“But I love you,” he said. “I need you. I can’t do it without you, Jyn.”

“I don’t want to be the reason you want to live,” she said.

“But you _are,”_ he said. 

“Oh, my love,” said Jyn. “You have to let me go.”

“I can’t. I _can’t._ No.” He tried to wrap his arms around her, but she was already gone.


	6. a big deal

Cassian had been harder to get a hold of for a couple of days. Usually, they sent each other messages all day long, but he’d been less responsive than usual. Was he still angry at her after their fight? But he’d seemed fine when he left her office after their talk the other day. She hoped he wasn’t avoiding her over Ben’s silly ideas.

She finally showed up at his office, ready to get some answers. “Are you avoiding me?” she asked him.

“Am I avoiding you?” repeated Cassian. “No. Why?” 

“Because it seems like you are,” she said. “You’re not answering my messages.”

“Leia,” he said. “You’re not the center of my universe, you know. I do have work to do.”

“You always have work to do,” she said. “But that doesn’t stop you from talking to me.”

He smiled, shaking his head.

“Are you still angry?” she asked.

“No,” he said. “I’m not angry at you, Leia.”

“So you’ll come over tonight? I was going to make that thing with the noodles you like.”

There was a pause. “That sounds good,” he said, “but I can’t.”

“You can’t?” Something _was_ going on.

“I sort of have plans.” He was studiously avoiding looking at her. 

She put a hand on her hip. “What plans?”

“Just… plans.”

“To do what?”

He rubbed his palms on his pants like he was nervous. “It’s nothing, I’m just busy.”

“Cassian,” she said, and she knew she was being too nosy, but Cassian had never once told her that he had “plans” in all these years. “What plans? You never have plans.”

“Well, I do tonight.”

“Cassian,” she said again, using her mom voice.

He sighed. “Okay, but just, don’t make a big deal out of it, please?”

So it was a big deal. 

“I promise,” she said, holding her hand up like she was being sworn in for testimony.

He was still not looking at her. “I’m having dinner with your friend. Marcius.”

He was doing _what?_ “What, like a date?”

He didn’t answer for a moment, and then, reluctantly, said “yeah. Like a date. Stop it,” he said. “Don’t say anything.”

“I didn’t say anything!”

“You want to, though. Just, don’t, okay? It’s not… I don’t know. We went out a couple nights ago, and it was… it was fine. I didn’t hate it.”

“So you like him?”

“I don’t know. I don’t… not like him.”

“I guess that’s a start,” she said. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me, Cassian!”

“Because I didn’t want you to do this,” he said.

“Do what?” 

“Get all… excited, like it’s some big deal.”

“It kind of is, though, isn’t it? You haven’t been on a date in ten years.”

“Longer than that,” he said. 

“So, this is great.”

“Stop it,” he said. “What did I just tell you? Just relax.”

“I’m relaxed!”

“You’re gloating.”

“I am _not_ gloating.”

“I know what you look like when you’re gloating,” he said.

“I’m not gloating,” she said. “I’m just happy, and I enjoy being proven right.”

“That’s what gloating is.”

He was trying to glare at her, but the energy she felt from him was relieved. He’d been nervous about telling her.

“All right,” she said, smiling. “I think it’s awful. I just _hate_ that you’re going out with an attractive, intelligent man—”

“Starting to sound like _you_ want to date him, Organa,” he interrupted.

“You got me,” she said. “I had to set him up with you because I find him so irresistible, I wouldn’t be able to keep myself away.”

“I knew it,” he said, shaking his head. 

“No one can keep a secret from you, Andor.” She smiled. Whatever he said about it, Cassian was in a good mood. Cassian’s good moods were rare, and the way they felt were unmistakable. It was such a pleasant feeling, to feel happiness from him. It made everything seem lighter and more beautiful.

“Okay,” she said. “Can I ask—”

“No,” he said.

“You didn’t let me finish!”

“I’m pretty sure I know the gist of it,” he said.

“You’re so annoying,” she said. “I just want to know where you’re going to dinner.”

“So you can show up and spy on us? I don’t think so, Senator.” He was almost laughing.

“Well, what did you do last time?”

“We ate.”

“And…?”

“And that’s all.”

“You sat there in total silence and just ate?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said. “Not a single word was spoken.”

“Oh fine,” she said. “Keep your secrets. Can I have you tomorrow night or will Marcius be monopolizing you for the near future?”

“I'll come over tomorrow,” he said, “if you promise to make the thing with the noodles.”

“I’ll think about it,” she said, loftily. “I might just make it tonight after all and Ben and I will eat it all ourselves.”

“You brat,” he said, but he was laughing again, and she felt so buoyed up by his good mood that her face hurt from smiling.


	7. a mess

He wasn’t sure why he kept saying yes to Marcius. Every time he did, it surprised him a little. The whole situation was so bizarre. He was nervous, and angry at himself for being nervous, and he kept thinking, this will be the last time, but then he’d say yes again. At least he knew that Marcius wasn’t going to be on Chandrila much longer. There would be a clear ending, and he could go back to his regular life.

And what would be so great about that, he asked himself. Going back to his regular, miserable, lonely life? He was a mess. He’d always been a mess, but he used to at least be in control of what kind of mess he was. Since the war ended, he’d had nothing to hang on to, except for his friendship with Leia. He hadn’t even realized how utterly miserable he was, because he’d been so numb so much of the time, but now he could look around and see his life the way she must have seen it; the shitty, empty apartment; the nights spent on the floor of his closet holding Jyn’s necklace in his hand; no friends, no family, nothing to give his life shape or meaning, except Leia, always Leia, trying to save him from himself.

He couldn’t imagine what Marcius saw in him; he never had much to talk about and he was as incapable of relaxing as he ever had been. Mostly he listened and let Marcius talk. Maybe that was what he liked; a lot of men like to talk about themselves.

After a few more dinners, Marcius invited him back to his hotel for a “drink” and he hesitated before he said okay, but he said okay. He drank his drink, because he was so nervous, and he got even more annoyed at himself, because what was he so nervous _about?_ It wasn’t like he’d never had sex before. But since Jyn it had only been with near-strangers, people he went home with one night and then never saw again. Just sex and nothing else. 

They didn’t have sex that night. They kissed for a while and then Cassian made his excuses and bolted. He felt like an idiot. He did like Marcius; he was sexy and kind, and he was being absurdly patient with Cassian, like he was trying to tame a feral animal. Why? What was the appeal? 

Why was he like this?

Every night he kept taking out the crystal and talking to Jyn. What am I doing, he asked her. What am I doing? Will you ever forgive me?

When he dreamed about her now, she kept saying the same thing: “you have to let me go.”

“How can I?” he said.

“I don’t know,” she said.

“You promised,” he told her, pleading. “You said you’d always come back. You promised.”

“I want you to be happy,” said Jyn. “That’s all I ever wanted for you.”

“I’ll never be happy,” he said. “I never have been.”

“You could be,” she said. “But you have to let me go.”

* * * * *

“Why don’t both of you come over?” said Leia, and he sighed. “It’ll be fun,” she insisted.

“You are such a meddler, Organa,” he said.

“I know, I’m awful. But Ben’s staying over at his friend’s tonight and I’m going to be all by myself, and you know if I don’t have something to distract me I’ll just stay up all night working.”

“You can’t get a hobby besides interfering with my life?”

“Oh it’s much too late for that,” she said. “I’m calling him right now and inviting him and he’s so polite you know he’ll accept. So either you can come too or I’m just going to talk to him about you all night.”

“Don’t you dare,” he said.

“Cassian Andor, you are _blushing.”_

“I am not.”

“You are! Just a little bit.” She put her hand against his cheek. “Mm-hmm. You’re hot. So either you have a fever, or you’re blushing.”

“I must have a fever,” he said. “I better go home.”

“Twenty-hundred,” she said. “My place.”

* * * * *

“Cassian, can you hand me the thing—”

He handed her the bowl before she finished asking. “Why do you keep things on such high shelves?” he asked. “When you can’t reach them?”

“Well, I didn’t put it up there, did I? You must have done that. I think when the capital moves I’m going to have my new house built just for me and everything will be my height.”

“Ben will be hitting his head on the ceiling,” said Cassian. “Your husband won’t be able to get through the door.”

“He can crawl,” said Leia cheerfully. “Here, chop these.”

“You’re sure there’s nothing I can do to help?” asked Marcius from the kitchen table.

“You can supervise Cassian,” said Leia, “and make sure he doesn’t cut his fingers off.”

“Ha, ha,” said Cassian. “You’re in some mood tonight, Organa.”

“It’s almost the end of the session,” said Leia. “I swear it gets longer every year. I’m starting to think I might hate politics.”

“Everyone hates politics,” said Cassian.

“Oh what do you know, Andor, you hate everything.”

“No I don’t! I don’t hate you.”

She threw a kitchen towel at him, laughing. “Me and noodles, end of list, right?”

“Just about.” He snuck a quick glance at Marcius, who had a thoughtful look on his face.

“Well I’m absolutely determined,” she said, “to push through this vote on the bill funding your research, Marcius. It goes way beyond just the one planet. It’s so overlooked as a problem, but all the Empire ever cared about was extracting whatever they could from poorer worlds, and they did so much damage to their environments.”

“Unlike the Republic,” said Cassian sarcastically, “which cared so much about us. Fest was just a paradise before the Emperor showed up.”

“Don’t be obnoxious,” she said. “The old Republic made a lot of mistakes and that was one of them. We’re trying to fix it now, aren’t we? Are you done with those? Go sit down, I’ll finish up. Marcius, do you need a refill?” She was refilling her own glass for the second or third time.

“I’m fine,” said Marcius. Cassian sat, glanced at him and then away again. He’d just about gotten to where he didn’t feel completely shy and awkward around Marcius, but here at Leia’s, the shyness was back. It was strange to have a third person in the kitchen with them, other than Ben. It was strange for it to be someone he’d kissed. Nothing about this _wasn’t_ strange, especially how weirdly normal it was, like something from a holovid. 

This odd alien sensation landed on him sometimes when he and Leia were in the kitchen together, as if he had somehow stepped into someone else’s life: his own world had never had scenes like this, although sometimes he could almost catch the ghost of a memory of something like it, from when he’d been very small and still had a family and a home. It was disorienting when it came on.

He glanced again at Marcius, who caught him looking and gave him a little bit of a smile, but there was something a little sad in it. Oh, thought Cassian. He’s finally figuring out that there’s something really wrong with me.

* * * * *

After dinner, Cassian walked Marcius back to his hotel.

Marcius seemed quieter than usual, like he was thinking things over. 

“I’m heading back tomorrow,” said Marcius.

“Oh,” said Cassian. He felt a little knot of anxiety in his stomach.

“This has been fun,” said Marcius, and Cassian nodded.

“Yeah,” he said. “It has.”

“Well,” said Marcius, as they reached the hotel. “If you ever decide to go home, look me up.”

“Okay,” said Cassian.

Marcius didn’t invite him up this time, just gave him a quick kiss and said goodnight. Cassian felt a curious mixture of relief and disappointment as he turned to walk back home. Marcius _had_ finally figured out that Cassian was too broken and weird for this kind of thing. Why had he ever convinced himself otherwise? 

Well, he would probably never see him again, and that thought was at least as comforting as it was disappointing.


	8. the mistake

Six months later, Cassian made a mistake. They were sitting in Leia’s living room in the middle of the afternoon. Normally they’d both be at work, but she’d had a morning full of terrible meetings and decided to go home early, and through extreme persistence, had eventually persuaded him to do the same. She was pretty well into a bottle of that expensive wine she was so fond of, and kept sneakily refilling Cassian’s glass when he wasn’t looking. Neither of them were drunk, but neither of them were entirely sober, either.

“Everything is just such a mess,” said Leia. “All this infighting, we can’t get anything done. I’m really starting to worry that we’re not going to be able to… to sustain this. We can’t get anything done without an executive, but that’s exactly how we got into trouble the last time: giving the Chancellor too much power. Sometimes I almost miss the war. At least we knew who our enemy was.”

“Yeah,” said Cassian. “I know what you mean.” 

“It was nice and clear,” she said. “They were evil, we were good. Now I just don’t know.” She sighed. “We should have taken more time to design a new system. At the time it just seemed so important to get things stabilized, and then inertia’s just been carrying us along. You were right all along, you know. You remember telling me that my father and Mon didn’t want real change, they just wanted to put everything back to how it was before Palpatine?”

“No,” he said, “but that sounds like something I’d say.”

She laughed a little. “Yeah, it does.” She sighed, leaned her head against his shoulder. “I’m so  _ tired, _ Cass. And I keep thinking, if only my dad were here. He’d know what to do.”

He put his arm around her. She felt warm and nice against him. It felt like home. She felt like home. That was a dangerous thought, maybe, but he dismissed that. She was his friend; his best friend; his only friend, and there was nothing wrong with friends sitting together like this, nothing wrong with feeling comfortable and warm and happy with her next to him. Friends could do that.

“He was a good man,” said Cassian. “But I don’t know if he could work miracles any more than you can.”

“You don’t think I’ve worked a few miracles in my time?” she asked.

“You have,” he agreed. 

“Dad built the Alliance,” she said. “He got all those little groups together and got them to cooperate, and that’s how we won.”

“And even the Alliance couldn’t agree on anything, and our council was a lot smaller than the Senate,” he pointed out. “The worst idea Mothma ever had was that the council needed to vote unanimously.”

“You’re right. You’re always right. That’s what’s so irritating about you.”

“That’s what’s so irritating about  _ you,” _ he replied, and he turned his head to look at her, and she was smiling up at him and it suddenly hit him how beautiful she was, and something seemed to happen, even though nothing  _ had _ happened; they were just looking at each other. 

Then she kissed him, unless he kissed her. It happened so fast and was so unexpected he wasn’t sure who started it, but now her hands were in his hair, on the sides of his face, and she was leaning back, and his hands found her waist, her hips, he moved without thinking about it, as if he’d been waiting for this.  _ Had _ he been waiting for this? All this time, playing house with each other, all this time acting like a couple in every way except this one, and now it was happening.

He couldn’t risk thinking about it, because if he thought about it, he’d realize what a life-ruiningly terrible idea this was, and then they’d have to stop, and he couldn’t stop now. She was already working on his belt, hands shaking, and he pushed her dress up over her hips, and he was shaking, too, and his fingers brushed between her legs and she whispered yes, yes, yes.

How long had he been wanting this? It made so much sense now; of  _ course _ it was her that he wanted, that he’d  _ been _ wanting: Leia, who saved him, Leia, who brought him back to life, and she pushed his pants down and one of her legs went up around his waist and this,  _ this _ was what he’d been longing for, not even knowing it, and he breathed out her name, helpless to do anything but keep moving inside her, unable to think about anything but her, and for a little while there was nothing but this, and then when it was over, they just lay there for a moment, trembling, too shocked to move or think.

“Oh shit,” said Leia.

Shaking, he stood up and pulled his pants back up, then fell back onto the sofa. She tugged her dress back down, ran her hands over her hair. He looked at her, and then away. What the fuck. What the  _ fuck. _

In their haste, they’d knocked the wine glasses over, and there were twin red stains spreading on the carpet. He stared at them, shaken. He couldn’t think. What had just happened? He looked at her again and her face was as shocked and horrified as he felt. He felt like he should say something, but he had no idea what. How long had this been going on? How long had he felt this way about her, and why hadn’t he known?

_ Why hadn’t he known? _

“Are you going to tell Han?” she asked suddenly.

Well, that wasn’t precisely what he’d hoped to hear her say. “I wasn’t planning on it,” he said. “Are you?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Oh fuck, I don’t fucking know.” She sounded like she might cry. “I do love him. I do. I do. But he’s never  _ here.” _

Of course it wasn’t really him that she wanted. She was just lonely. She wanted her husband, and her husband wasn’t here, but Cassian was, so she’d settle for him. Wasn’t that how it had been for years now?

She went on talking, though. “I think… maybe I’ve been wanting this. For a long time.”

“I think I have, too,” he said softly. How long? How long? “I just didn’t know it. If I’d known… I would have stayed away.” 

“I would have been miserable,” said Leia, “if you’d stayed away. Is that what you’re going to do now?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Yes.”

“I don’t want you to,” she whispered, and there were tears in her eyes. “I don’t want you to be gone. You’re… other than Ben, you’re the best thing in my life. I don’t want to lose you.”

“I shouldn’t  _ be _ the best thing in your life,” he said. He closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths. “We can’t go back to how we were. _ I _ can’t go back to how we were. And I don’t want to be the thing that breaks up your marriage.” 

Didn’t he? It hit him so hard he almost couldn’t breathe, how badly he wanted to be loved again. To remember what it felt like, when somebody loved him. But of course he couldn’t say that.

“Maybe it was already broken,” she said.

“Maybe,” he said, still just staring at the spilled wine, feeling dizzy and confused from the revelation of his own loneliness, this aching hunger to be loved that he hadn’t known was there until just now.

“But you’re not going to leave him. You’re never going to leave him. If you haven’t done it by now you’re never going to do it. And I can’t… I can’t keep coming over here and making dinner and talking all night and the whole time I’m just going to be remembering today and waiting… and  _ hoping _ that it’ll happen again.”

“Cassian,” she said, and he winced. He didn’t want to hear her say his name. Not if she wasn’t going to say that she loved him, and he knew she wasn’t going to say that. He closed his eyes, kept them that way, waited to hear what she was going to say. “I’m sorry,” she said, finally. “I’m sorry.”

He nodded. That’s what he’d expected. “At least now I know,” he said.

“At least now you know what?” 

He shouldn’t say it; it would only hurt them both, but what else did he have to lose now? “That I love you,” he said. “I didn’t know. I’m going to go.” Say you love me, too, he thought. Say it, just say it and mean it.

But she didn’t say anything.


	9. Leia

For a long moment, after he left, she couldn’t do anything. Finally she picked up the wine glasses from the floor, and that’s when she started to cry. She cried until she couldn’t cry anymore, and then she drank a lot of water and cried some more. That was, without a doubt, the stupidest mistake she’d ever made in her thirty-four years. She had to get a hold of herself, though, because Ben would be home from school soon, and she wouldn’t be able to explain what was wrong if he found her like this. 

Was Ben going to  _ know? _ He was so sensitive to peoples’ feelings, even more than she was. What if he walked through the door and he could tell? Could sense the emotional residue from what had happened? The air felt thick with it to her. And he had already been asking questions about her and Cassian. 

And how was she going to explain the mess? One of the little cleaning droids was already scrubbing away at the wine stains, but you could never really get red wine out. There was always going to be a little shadow, and she was always going to know what it meant. She was going to have to replace the carpet. Replace the couch, too, because how was she ever going to be able to look at it without thinking about what had just happened? Replace the whole goddamn house, because Cassian was here, everywhere; it was more his house than it was Han’s.

_ Are you in love with Uncle Cassian? Because I think you are, and I think you should go for it. _ Ben’s words, after that disastrous fight she and Cassian had when she’d invited Marcius to dinner. She’d thought she was being so clever. Now she knew: she’d been trying to prevent  _ this _ from happening, trying to find an obstacle to put between them that was harder to ignore than her absentee husband. 

Would Han even  _ care _ if he found out? Did he care how lonely she was without him? If he were here, if he were a real husband to her, this would never have happened. A whole new round of sobbing erupted out of her.

She took a shower, to wash him off of her skin. She smelled like him, smelled like sex. She stood there in the hot water and tried to stop thinking about it, about his hands on her, about the way he had looked at her. How long had it been since anyone had touched her like that, had looked at her like that? How long since her husband had even been in this house?

Had he meant it when he said he loved her? How long had he felt that way? Did she still love him, too? She’d adored him madly when she was a girl, would have given anything for a day like this back then. Was what she was feeling now just left over? Was it real?

There were too many questions. What a stupid, stupid thing to have done. If only she could blame him for it, but it was her fault. She’d started it. She’d wanted it.

Her hands passed over the curves of her hips, where his hands had been earlier, and she bit her lip and closed her eyes. Don’t, she told herself. Don’t. But she was already doing it. What would it have felt like, if they had gone slower? They had rushed through it because they both knew they were making a mistake, and they couldn’t take time to think about it or they’d have to stop. But what if they had taken their time? What would it feel like to feel his mouth on her breasts, or to feel his mouth where her hand was now, slowly working? She leaned against the wall of the shower, stifled a soft sound. Don’t do this, she thought, this is almost as bad as actually sleeping with him. Stop. Stop.

But she didn’t stop. She kept going, moving faster, imagining him on his knees there in front of her with his hands on the backs of her thighs and his face pressed between her legs and she came so hard she had to sit down on the floor of the shower.

This was really bad. 

She’d ruined it. They’d had something real and good, a solid friendship of years, and now she’d ruined it, thrown it away for a few minutes of pleasure. What was she  _ thinking? _

And now she was going to have to make a decision about what she really wanted.

She’d gotten married so young, she’d had Ben so young. Not that young, though. She was twenty-four when Ben was born. That’s old enough to know what you want, or it should be. Shouldn’t it? Life had been such chaos during those years, the war years. All she’d known was that she loved Han with all her heart, so when he asked her to marry him, she said yes without hesitating. She hadn’t known then how things would change in peacetime, how restless he would get. If she had known, would she still have married him? 

Cassian had been there, at the wedding, still shattered and broken from losing Jyn, and she remembered thinking that it seemed cruel to be so in love and so happy when he was so lost and devastated. She hadn’t been sure he would come. When she’d told him she was marrying Han, he had told her it was a bad idea, but she had thought it was just his grief talking. That whole first year after Jyn died he had been like a hollow shell, and she’d been so worried about him and so afraid that one day he was just going to lie down and not get up again. So she had adopted him, had refused to let him push her away, and he had tried so hard to push her away; had said such awful, cruel things to her, but she just kept showing up, kept forgiving him, kept loving him, because he needed someone to love him or his grief was going to kill him, and she couldn’t let that happen.

And he had come to her wedding after all, looking thin and pale and haunted, and he’d kissed her cheek and told her that she looked beautiful, and that he hoped she would be happy. 

She’d lost track of him after that, because she was laughing and dancing and so wrapped up in her new husband, and no one but she and Han had known it yet, but the little creature that was going to become Ben had been snugly tucked inside her and she’d been so happy and she’d loved Han  _ so much.  _ She still did.

Come home, she thought. Oh Han, come home.


	10. welcome home

The first thing he did was call his office and let them know he wasn’t going to come in for a few days. Cassian had never taken a vacation before, and now seemed like the time. It was peacetime. There was nothing vital that needed to be dealt with, his staff were perfectly capable of handling things for a few days, and if anything serious came up, they could reach him. He couldn’t just resume his regular life right now. He felt sick and disgusted with himself, like he hadn’t felt in years.

The next thing he did was rent a ship, and then he got on it and left Chandrila behind.

He didn’t actually know where he thought he was going to go, until he was in the air, and then he found himself entering the coordinates for Fest. It was time to go home.

* * * * *

It wasn’t _completely_ unrecognizable. But the snow looked less gray than it used to, and there were new buildings standing where he remembered piles of rubble. The kids he saw running around looked better fed and healthier than when he’d been one of them. 

He tried to remember where the house he’d lived in when he was small had been. The house had fallen like all the others on their street when the bombings started, but the street might still be there. They might have built houses there again. Or there might be something he recognized. Something that might help him believe that he really had been part of a family once, that he’d had a home. That he’d been loved.

But he didn’t know. He’d been too young.

What was he doing here? He chose a random direction and started walking, not knowing where he was going. He didn’t recognize anything, and he wondered whether he even really had grown up here. Whether he had ever really existed at all.

He recognized the river, when he got there. Partially frozen over, chunks of ice in the parts that were still sluggishly flowing. In the banks he could see the original struts of a bridge that he’d blown up when he was twelve. The bomb had gone off a little early, and he’d gotten a pretty bad burn on the side of his torso. Not bad enough to waste bacta on; they’d packed it with snow and let it heal on its own. It was one of his uglier scars. He put his hand over it.

He was cold. He needed to get a better coat. He’d never needed one on Chandrila, and he hadn’t thought to get one before he left, because he hadn’t known where he was going.

He tried to remember his mother’s face, what it had looked like when she was alive, but all he could remember were those dead green eyes and the thick ooze of blood running down her pale face. He wondered if there really was a graveyard with her in it. He didn’t know what happened to her after she died. Maybe they’d just left her body in the ruins of their house. He didn’t know. Why didn’t he know?

He found a little hostel and got a room. He almost signed in under a fake name, but he used his real one, and the girl at the desk looked at him for a moment like she was trying to decide if she should say something or not. But all she said was “welcome home,” in Festian, and he thanked her and took the key.

He thought about calling Marcius. Marcius had told him to call him if he ever came back to Fest. His place was probably nicer than the hostel. He liked Marcius. It would be a fun distraction. But it wouldn’t be fair to him; Marcius didn’t want to just be a fun distraction. Marcius wanted something that Cassian couldn’t give him, because Cassian was in love with fucking _Leia._ Like an idiot.

So he sat on the edge of the bed and watched the snow fall outside, and tried not to think about anything, but of course he thought about her. What had he been thinking? What had _she_ been thinking? And what in the world was he going to do now? How could he ever look at her face again? He knew he’d done things, a lot of things, that were objectively much worse than sleeping with a married woman, but it had always been in the service of a cause. This had been pure selfishness, and he hated himself for it.

Why the _fuck_ wasn’t Han Solo around to take care of his wife? How could he be married to that woman and not want to actually _be_ with her? What the fuck was wrong with him? 

He was wearing Jyn’s crystal around his neck, because that was the only way to be sure it wouldn’t be stolen while he was here, and he sat there and ran his fingers over it. Jyn, he thought, I really fucked up. I wish you were here. 

How could he still miss her so much? How could he still be so in love with her, when she’d been dead for so long? I just want to be loved, he told her. I’m so tired of being alone, Jyn. You loved me; how? 

How could anyone have ever loved someone like him? But Jyn had, and he had loved her so much that he had, for a little while, become the kind of person that someone could love. The kind of person that _she_ could love.

Now he had to figure out how to deal with this mess. He was tempted to quit his job, just stay here on Fest forever, and never have to see Leia again. Maybe it was time. He could find some way to be useful here. Rebuild his world. Wasn’t that why he’d fought the war in the first place?

Was it? He’d been a child. He’d never been given any choice, never had any other options. He’d just done what had to be done. He’d never questioned it. There was no point in questioning it.

 _What do you think you would be doing if you weren’t doing this?_ Jyn had asked him that once, and he hadn’t been able to answer her. You could find out, now, he told himself. You could. 

I never wanted you to see this place, he told Jyn. But I brought you here anyway. It’s ugly, isn’t it? Like I am. Just ugly and broken and unlovable, like me. So now you know. And he put his head in his hands and started to cry.

* * * * *

He went out again the next day, bought a decent coat, and wandered around some more. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for, why he was here. He stumbled on a memorial to the war dead that he hadn’t known existed. There was a cloying, sentimental poem inscribed in both Festian and Basic. And there were names. He recognized a lot of them. He ran his fingers over the engravings, looking for the ones he’d known. There was Elaria, who died on Hoth. There was Elaria’s mother, who had been the leader of their cell when they were kids. There was the first boy he’d kissed, when he was fourteen, who had been shot in the back by a stormtrooper a few weeks later. Who had built this? Who had ever recorded any of these names, and why?

He felt sick, and sad, and angry. Why was he still alive, and all of them were dead? He should have died; he was _supposed_ to die. Death had always been the plan; he was supposed to die for the cause, but here he was, and the war had been over for almost ten years, and he was still alive. Why?

As he was leaving, he heard his name. “Cassian?”

He turned his head. It was Marcius. “Hi,” he said, surprised. The odds that he would run into Marcius had to be infinitesimal. _Uncle Luke says there’s no such thing as coincidences._

“It is you,” said Marcius. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming to Fest?” 

“It was sort of… spontaneous,” he answered. 

“It’s really nice to see you,” said Marcius.

“You too,” said Cassian, and to his surprise, he meant it. It _was_ nice to see a face he recognized, someone who was glad to see him. 

Marcius seemed like he was about to leave, and Cassian didn’t want him to leave, so he said, “do you want to… to do something?” 

Marcius looked surprised, and Cassian couldn’t blame him. He’d never initiated anything before. But he smiled. “Yeah,” said Marcius. “Yeah, that sounds great. Are you busy now?”

* * * * *

“So really,” said Marcius. “What brought you back here? I didn’t think you were ever coming back.” They were in Marcius’s apartment, which was much nicer than Cassian’s. It was funny to think that there could be a place on Fest that was nicer than anywhere on Chandrila. Things really must be changing here.

“Neither did I,” Cassian confessed. “I guess it just seemed like it was time. And I had to get away from Chandrila for a while.”

“Ah,” said Marcius. “Did you finally figure it out?”

He looked at him, confused. “Figure what out?”

“That you’re in love with Leia.”

“That I’m— what?” he stammered. He was so surprised that he didn’t even bother trying to deny it. “How did _you_ know that?”

Marcius laughed. “Because I’ve seen the two of you together. That last night, when we had dinner at her house? I don’t want to say it’s obvious, but… You look at her like she’s the only thing in color, and everything else is black and white.”

“Fuck me,” said Cassian. “I had no idea.”

“Yeah,” said Marcius. “You’re _really_ cut off from your own emotions.”

“Yeah,” said Cassian. “I’m starting to realize that. Are you a therapist or something now?”

“Just someone who pays attention,” said Marcius. “I’m a scientist, you know? There were a limited number of possible explanations for why you’d keep agreeing to go out with me and then run away any time it seemed like things might get serious.”

“I’m sorry,” said Cassian, embarrassed.

“Don’t worry about it. I’m sorry you’re in love with a married woman. You want to get drunk about it?”

Cassian paused for a moment. “Yes. Yes, I think I do.”

Marcius laughed again. 

“What’s so funny?

“That’s the first time you’ve ever told me ‘yes’ instead of ‘okay,’” he said, pouring the drinks.


	11. how to be alive

“I think I’m going to quit my job,” said Cassian. “I don’t want to go back there.” He was sitting on the floor with his back against the sofa. Marcius had lain down on the floor and had his head in Cassian’s lap, which wasn’t terrible. They were both very drunk.

“And do what?” asked Marcius.

“I don’t know. I don’t really have any other skills, you know? Oh look,” he said, looking out the window. “It’s snowing again. I haven’t seen it snow in so long,” he said wistfully. The snow was fat and fluffy and falling fast, and it churned something up in him to see it.

“You’ll get sick of it if you stay here,” said Marcius.

“No,” said Cassian. “No, I don’t think I could.”

“You want to go outside and build a snowman?” asked Marcius, and Cassian started giggling.

“Maybe later,” he said. “Maybe later. It looks different. Prettier. Not so dirty. You did that, huh?”

“Not just me,” said Marcius. “And it’s still not exactly pristine.”

“That’s what I’ll do, I’ll come work for you, you give me a job.”

Marcius laughed. “Doing what?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know. What do you have? I’m a fast learner.”

“You’re drunk, is what you are.”

He laughed again. “Yeah. Yeah I am. I never get drunk, never ever never never.”

“How come?”

“Mmm, I don’t like it. All those… too many feelings, you know?”

“Ah,” said Marcius. “You don’t like feelings.”

“I’m bad at them,” he said. “Really bad at them. Jyn always used to say, Cassian, you have to have your feelings, it’s not healthy. It’s not healthy.”

“Well,” said Marcius, “Jyn was right. Jyn as in Jyn Erso?”

“Jyn Erso,” he repeated. “Jyn. Wait, how do you know Jyn?”

“I don’t,” said Marcius, laughing. “But everyone knows _about_ her, just like everyone knows about you.”

“Ohh,” said Cassian, rolling his head back so he was staring at the ceiling. “Rogue One. I wish they’d stop making those fucking holovids. I hate them. They want it to be so exciting and sexy and… heroic. It wasn’t any of that. It was just ugly and awful and sad and everyone died. They were all better than me.” He blinked his eyes rapidly. “See, this is why I don’t get drunk,” he said.

“You must have really cared about her a lot,” said Marcius.

“We were going to… and then she died. And ever since I’ve just been hanging around waiting to die, too. Why are we talking about this?”

“I don’t know. Because you’re drunk.”

“I wish I could forget any of it happened,” he said wistfully. “I wish it never did happen. Did you ever love anyone?”

“Yeah, a couple of people. They didn’t die, though. We just weren’t right for each other.”

“Everyone I ever knew died,” he said. “I was at that thing today, the memorial. Everyone I ever knew in my life is on it, or should be. I don’t know how to be alive.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but you should seriously consider seeing a therapist.”

He made a face. “Talk to some stranger? Nobody can know what it’s like unless they were there. You don’t know… you weren’t there so you don’t know.”

“I know you like to think that you’re the only person who ever had things hard,” said Marcius, “but I _did_ live in a refugee camp when I was a kid, you know.”

“I know. I know, I’m sorry. I’m an asshole.”

“Don’t be a brat,” said Marcius.

He noticed that he was stroking Marcius’s hair, and realized that he had been doing so for quite a while. It was thick and curly and he liked touching it. “I like you better when you’re not being so nice to me,” he said.

“Mm-hmm,” said Marcius. “Kind of proving my point about therapy, aren’t you?”

“Why _are_ you so nice to me?” he asked. “I could never figure it out.”

“Mostly because you’re so hot,” said Marcius, and Cassian laughed. “I have a weakness for beautiful, sad, emotionally unavailable disaster boys.”

“Disaster boy,” echoed Cassian. “That’s a good description. I am a disaster.” He started laughing again. “Maybe _you_ need to get a therapist, too.”

“Probably,” said Marcius. “How do you say ‘snow’ in Festian?” 

“Nieve. Or if you want to say it’s snowing you say está nevar.”

“Está nevar,” said Marcius.

Cassian laughed. “You sound like an offworlder.”

“I know,” said Marcius, and he sounded wistful. “I guess I’ll never really belong here.”

“That’s okay,” said Cassian. “I don’t really belong here anymore either. I don’t belong anywhere.” He drained his glass. “The world I belonged to doesn’t exist anymore.”

“You’re beautiful,” said Marcius, reaching up and touching his face. “How do you say that?”

“Tu eres hermoso to a boy. Tu eres hermosa to a girl.” He caught Marcius’s hand with his. “I don’t know how I would translate ‘disaster boy.’ You’re beautiful, too.”

“I know. That’s why it’s so annoying that you don’t like me.”

“I do like you, though.”

Marcius opened his eyes. “Do you?”

He really was beautiful. He still had Marcius’s hand in his, and he lifted it back up to his face and, hesitant, kissed his fingertips, and he and Marcius looked at each other for a moment. “I do like you,” he said again, and Marcius sat up, slowly, and they kept looking at each other, and then Cassian leaned forward and kissed him.

“You’re so pretty,” said Marcius when it was over, so he kissed him again. This was nice. This could be good. He leaned backward a little, pulling Marcius closer, tilted his head back so Marcius could kiss his neck.

“Hey,” said Marcius softly. “Are you good?”

“I’m good,” he answered in a whisper. “I’m really good, I’m really good.” He kissed him again, and let his hands go up underneath Marcius’s shirt so he could touch his warm skin.

“Do you want to move this to the bedroom?” Marcius asked.

He nodded, almost said “okay,” and then corrected himself: “Yes. Yes.” 

He lay underneath Marcius in his nice bed and kissed him, and he suddenly really wanted to see what Marcius looked like without any clothes on, so he started to undress him, and then somehow he’d gotten on top of Marcius and was kissing the lovely dark skin of his chest and stomach, and this was good, this was good, he should have done this months ago, and then Marcius tried to take his shirt off and he flinched away.

“Don’t,” he said.

“Why not?”

He struggled to find words to explain it. The truth was that when people saw him with his shirt off, they were usually pretty shocked by the scars. They were ugly. _He_ was ugly. That hadn’t bothered him when it was strangers, but he felt suddenly shy and scared to let Marcius see it.

“It’s ugly,” he said. “I’m… It’s ugly.”

“It’s okay,” said Marcius. “It’s okay. You’re not ugly. You’re beautiful.” He slowly took the hem of Cassian’s shirt in his hands and started to lift it, moving so slowly that Cassian could stop him easily if he really wanted. He held still, closed his eyes, let the shirt go up over his head.

When he opened his eyes again, Marcius was looking at him gently. He ran his fingers over the scars, tracing the patterns that the war had left in his skin. Cassian shivered, and leaned down to kiss him again. “It’s ugly,” he said again, in a whisper.

“No, you aren’t,” said Marcius, and rolled him over onto his back and kissed him again.

“Is this okay?” whispered Marcius as he started to work on Cassian’s belt, and Cassian nodded, breathless, and then whimpered when Marcius got his hand on him. “Okay?” said Marcius.

He nodded again, eyes closed, and managed to get out a “yes,” before he pressed his mouth against Marcius’s again. 

“What do you want?” Marcius whispered against his ear. “What else do you want, Cassian? I want to make you feel good.”

“You _are,”_ he gasped. “Don’t stop.”

“I can’t understand you,” said Marcius, laughing. “You’re speaking Festian.”

Was he? He moaned again, rocking his hips as Marcius touched him, and then he was in Marcius’s _mouth,_ and he clenched his hands into fists in the blankets underneath him.

* * * * *

“We should have done this months ago,” said Cassian, sleepy. “I should have let you get me drunk before now.”

Marcius laughed. “I think you had to figure out the other thing first, babe.”

“No other thing,” said Cassian. “There’s no other thing.”

“Mmm-hmm,” said Marcius, snuggling around him. “We won’t talk about it now.”

“Won’t talk about it ever,” said Cassian. “Never never. Because it doesn’t exist.”

“Okay,” said Marcius. “Whatever you say. Are you going to stay the night?”

He yawned and nodded. “Is it okay?”

“Was that a yes? You’re speaking Festian again.”

“I am? I said, is it okay?”

“I want you to.”

“Then I will.” He yawned again. He felt so sleepy now. Sleepy and cared for, and maybe even a little bit safe. “I might have to sleep on the floor, though,” he said. “I can’t sleep in a soft bed like this.”

* * * * *

He woke up to bright sunlight and sat up, blinking. He was in Marcius’s bed. He’d fallen asleep after all, in the soft bed. He lay back down and pulled the blankets up over his head, burrowing into them like a nest. 

“What are you doing, you strange boy?” asked Marcius, who was standing in the doorway.

“Hi,” said Cassian, emerging from the blankets, smiling, feeling shy. He hadn’t actually spent the night with anyone since Jyn. He never slept over with the people he went home with; he got up and left as soon as they were done, went home and apologized to Jyn and showered and fell asleep.

“Hi. Are you feeling okay?”

“Yeah, actually.”

“Good.” Marcius sat down on the bed. “It occurred to me this morning that I probably, um, shouldn’t have— you were pretty drunk.”

Cassian kissed him, pulled him down into the bed. “Not drunk now,” he said, and reached down between them, rubbing his hand up against Marcius’s cock.

* * * * * 

“Well that was fun.”

Cassian started to laugh. “I definitely didn’t think _this_ was going to happen when I left Chandrila.”

“You thought you were just going to mope around feeling sorry for yourself for a few days,” said Marcius. “Go stand on a bridge and think about throwing yourself in the river.”

“Yeah,” said Cassian. “Pretty much.” He stretched his arms up over his head and sighed. “Thank you.”

“For what?” asked Marcius.

“For this. For… liking me, I guess?”

“Well,” said Marcius. “Despite your best efforts, you’re actually pretty likable.”

Cassian laughed. “No, I’m not.”

Marcius leaned over him and kissed him again. “Well, you’re really sexy, anyway.”

“I guess that’s something.” He smiled, looking down, absently fiddling with Jyn’s crystal on its chain around his neck.

“Can I ask about that?” said Marcius. “The necklace? I never saw you wearing it before.”

He closed his fist around the crystal, wanting to hide it. “I’d rather you didn’t,” he said, slowly. “Ask. Is that okay?”

“Sure,” said Marcius. “Well, if you really want to thank me, you can make me breakfast. I know you can cook.”

“Kind of,” said Cassian, smiling. “I’ve never made somebody breakfast before.”

“Lucky me,” said Marcius. “I’m the first.”

* * * * *

He ended up staying for almost a week. Marcius had work to do, so during the day, Cassian walked around the city and let his mind wander, let himself feel some things that he’d been avoiding for decades, and it was awful, but he thought maybe it was a kind of awful that was good for him. In his mind, he talked to Jyn a lot, told her about the memories the different pieces of the city conjured up. If Jyn was out there, somewhere, he thought maybe she’d be happy that he was finally doing this.

He spent his nights in Marcius’s bed, in Marcius’s arms. It was strange, but it was good, too. He didn’t know if he could really give Marcius what he wanted; he wasn’t really sure what Marcius did want, because he hadn’t asked. But at least for right now, it felt so good to _be_ wanted.

He thought about staying. Maybe he really would. Why not? What was there back on Chandrila for him, except bad memories and more pain? This was his home. He could stay here. He could.

On his wanderings, wherever he went, he heard people speaking his native language, and every time he stopped somewhere and needed to talk to someone, they spoke Festian together and it made him feel like his heart might break into a thousand pieces. This was his _home._ Why had he stayed away so long?

If anyone recognized him, they never said anything, and he was so grateful for that. He didn’t want to be Rogue One. He was just Cassian, who had finally come home.

He kept getting mixed up and speaking the wrong language when he was with Marcius, forgetting that Marcius didn’t speak Festian. It didn’t feel right to speak Basic on Fest, but it was all Marcius knew. When Marcius asked him about it, he found it hard to explain, but he tried: “It just feels weird,” he said, “to be here and speaking Basic. We never did, because the stormtroopers couldn’t understand us. And even before the stormtroopers, my father would lecture me so much about it. I think he might hear me, even though he's been dead so long. Anyway, I thought you wanted to learn?”

“You gonna teach me?”

“If you want. I’m looking for a new job.”

“No you’re not,” said Marcius. “You’re not going to quit your job.”

“Why not? How do you know? Maybe I will. I don’t want to go back. I like it here.”

“If she called you right now and said ‘I’m leaving my husband,’ would you still want to stay here? Or would you be on the first ship back to Chandrila?”

“I don’t know,” he said, after thinking about it for a moment. He wasn’t sure what he wanted. It was hard to imagine actually having a relationship with Leia, how that would look or feel or if he really even wanted it at all. “But she’s not ever going to leave her husband, so it doesn’t matter.”

“It matters to me.”

“I like you,” said Cassian. “Can that be enough, for now?”

Marcius kissed him. “That can be enough, for now.”


	12. honey, I'm home

Cassian was gone. His staff at the main Intelligence office didn’t know where he was; he’d abruptly called them and told them he wouldn’t be in for a while. He must have done it almost as soon as he left her house.

She went to his apartment, but he wasn’t home. It was like he had just vanished. She wondered if he was ever coming back. Maybe that was really it; she’d just never see him again.

She felt so guilty. She had kissed him; why? She had just wanted to, and for a moment she forgot about everything except the fact that she wanted to, and then… It was tempting to say it “just happened,” but it didn’t. She made it happen. What the fuck had she been _thinking?_

She tried not to think about it, but it was hard. She was crying a lot, and drinking more than usual, and she missed Han and she missed Cassian and she missed her life before she wrecked it like this. She hadn’t even known that she still felt that way about Cassian; it had been over a decade since the day she’d confessed her love to him in that frigid office at Echo Base. She’d been heartbroken when he turned her down and had refused to speak to him for weeks. Then had come the evacuation and the next thing she knew she was head over heels for Han. 

If she could go back in time and tell her teenage self that someday Cassian would tell her that he loved her, her younger self would have been ecstatic. She’d adored him, almost from the first moment she’d seen him. She’d been seventeen, still new to the rebellion and constantly frustrated, feeling like she was being kept on the sidelines when she wanted to be helping. Cassian had been mysterious and sexy, and he’d taken her seriously, treated her like the adult she believed herself to be. When she turned eighteen, she had made up her mind that she was going to lose her virginity with him, but although he had flirted with her shamelessly, and would kiss her back if she kissed him first, any attempt on her part to push him further than that was gently rebuffed. It had driven her crazy at the time, but looking back, it was pretty decent of him.

She’d never found anyone else she liked or trusted enough to go there until that twelve weeks on the Falcon with Han, when she’d fallen in love. What had happened out there had made what she felt for Cassian seem silly: a little girl’s crush that she’d mistaken for something bigger and deeper than it really was. 

She’d fallen in love with Han so gradually and so completely that she wasn’t even sure when it had happened. She’d been so afraid to love him, to love someone who kept promising to leave her behind.

Then, after he’d come back from the dead, he’d promised her he wasn’t going to leave again, that they’d be together for the rest of their lives.

So where was he now? He’d left her after all, like she’d been so afraid he would.

She was drinking alone when Han came home. Ben was asleep, and she was at the kitchen table with a bottle of wine. She heard the door open, and Han’s voice, cheerfully: “Honey, I’m home,” like a joke, and then he appeared, leaning against the doorway in that way he did, and she just stared at him for a moment, and then she jumped to her feet and threw her arms around him, burying her face in his clothes and breathing him in.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, through tears.

“Hey, Your Worship, what’s with the crying?”

She smiled through the tears, sniffling. “I hate it when you call me that.”

“Sorry, Leia.”

She put her face back against his chest, crying.

“Ben called me,” said Han. “He’s worried about you, and uh, I can see why.” He stroked her hair. “Have you been crying this much all week?”

“No,” she said. “No, I was just so surprised to see you.”

“Aw, what’s going on, honey? I haven’t seen you like this since you were pregnant.”

Well that was a terrifying thought, which for some reason made her start to laugh.

“Hold on,” said Han, “you’re _not_ pregnant, right?”

She laughed and laughed. “Han, we haven’t seen each other in five months. If I were pregnant, you’d know it.”

“Five months? Has it really been that long?”

“Yeah,” she said. “But who’s counting? I miss you.”

“Aw, baby, I miss you, too. I’ll come home more often. Just get carried away sometimes and don’t realize how much time has passed.”

She nodded, still snug against his chest. “Are you hungry? Or do you just want to go to bed?”

“Mm,” said Han, holding her closer. “Bed sounds pretty good to me.” She tilted her face up to him and he kissed her, and for a little while everything was good again.

* * * * *

Han fell asleep, but she felt wide awake. She lay there and listened to the sound of his breathing. Han was home.

They’d had sex, and it had been intense and electric, like when they were newlyweds, like when they had finally fallen into his bed toward the end of that endless journey to Bespin, when it had all been new and fresh and wild and strange. But this was better, because he knew every little inch of her body so well, and she came under his fingers and she came under his mouth and she came with him inside her and she could have kept going, she was so hungry for him, so hungry for his touch and his love. 

She’d been a little afraid that maybe she wouldn’t like it anymore, after having sex with someone else. What if she found her husband boring now? But she hadn’t needed to worry about that. She wanted him more than ever.

Maybe everything would be okay after all. She didn’t have to tell him about the mistake she’d made. She would forget about it altogether and it would be like it never happened.

Except that Cassian was gone. Which she would get used to eventually. They weren’t friends anymore, and that was bad, but she would get used to it. Life would go on.

“Han,” she said, softly, in the dark room. Han didn’t wake up. “I don’t want you to leave again. I want you to stay. I want you to stay.”

Maybe if she could say it to him now, she could say it to him for real in the morning.

* * * * *

A couple of days went by, and Han was still home, but she hadn’t yet told him that she wanted him to stay, and she knew she was running out of time, because he usually didn’t stay longer than a week, maybe two, before his wanderlust got him and he had to leave again. Unless she asked him to stay. Which she was going to do, any day now.

She finally did see Cassian when she and the rest of the Senate Intelligence Committee showed up for their regular security briefing. Part of her had been afraid they were going to learn that Cassian had quit and they were going to have to appoint a new head of intel, but there he was, in his usual place, with his usual frown, looking as if he’d never left at all.

After the meeting, she steeled herself and went to his office.

“Can we talk?” she asked.

“What is there to talk about?” he said.

“Han came home,” she said. He just looked at her, expressionless. “I didn’t tell him. I’m not going to tell him.”

“You going to stay married?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said.

He nodded. “Okay. So what is there to talk about?”

“So that’s… that’s it? We’re just never going to speak to each other again?”

“What do you want me to say?” He sounded tired. “If you want me you can have me, but you know you can’t have us both, and I can’t be… I’m not going to follow you around begging for scraps. I do have _some_ pride, Senator.”

“That’s not—”

“What do you _want_ from me?” he said. “Look, I get it. I was just some itch you needed to scratch—”

“No—”

“But I _love_ you. You understand that? I wish I didn’t,” he said miserably. “I wish so much that I didn’t. You’re the only person still alive who ever gave a shit whether I lived or died and you saved my life.”

“I didn’t.”

“You did. When she died, all I wanted was to die, too, and you wouldn’t let me. I’m never going to forget that, and I'm always going to..." He stopped, looked down. "Maybe someday we can be friends again," he went on. "I hope so. But I can’t do it now, Leia. I _can’t._ Don’t ask me to keep breaking my heart over you every day. That’s cruel.”

She’d had no idea that he felt so strongly about her. She’d thought… what? What stupid thing had she thought? That they could somehow go back to their old friendship, exactly like he’d told her he was never going to be able to do?

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m really sorry, Cassian.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Me too.”

“I guess I really fucked everything up,” she said, sadly.

“We both did,” he said. “But it was probably bound to happen sooner or later. Mark sure thought so.”

“Mark?” she echoed. Who the hell was Mark?

“Marcius,” he corrected himself.

“Marcius? You told Marcius?”

“Didn’t need to tell him,” said Cassian. “He already knew there was something up.”

“So you… were you on Fest? Is that where you’ve been?” He’d been on Fest with Marcius? Doing what? Since when did he call him _Mark?_

He gave her an incredulous look. “You are unbelievable, Organa. Are you _jealous?”_

“No, of course not.”

“You are.” He looked at her, shaking his head. “I don’t even know what to say to you. Just get out of my office so I can get back to work.”


	13. a real family

“Dad,” said Ben. “You know it’s almost my birthday.”

“I do know that,” said Han. They were in the kitchen, making breakfast together, the three of them, being a real family for once.

“And you know I’m going to be ten.”

“Ten?” said Han. “No, you’re like five, right?”

“Dad!”

“I thought you were just a baby,” said Leia. “Ten? That doesn’t sound right.”

“Mom! Dad! Stop!”

“Yeah, wasn’t he just born?” said Han.

“Just a few days ago,” agreed Leia. “I don’t think it’s his birthday at all.”

“Stop iiiiiit,” Ben whined. “You’re so annoying! Why do I have such annoying parents?”

“Listen to him,” said Han. “Are you turning ten or thirteen?”

“Ten!”

“Probably turning thirty,” said Leia. “He’s too grown up.”

“Dad!” said Ben, “I was going to say, before you guys started making fun of me—”

“Your mother would never make fun of you,” said Han.

“Dad! Just listen! I’m going to be ten next month, right? So you said when I was ten you would teach me to fly.”

“When did I say that?”

“Ten is too young to learn how to fly,” said Leia.

“No it isn’t, Mom! It’s not too young! Dad, how old were you when you learned to fly?”

“Older than ten,” said Han, “but if I could have learned when I was ten, I would have.”

“Your father is a reckless maniac of a pilot,” said Leia. “He’ll teach you bad habits, like flying into asteroid fields.”

“You flew us into the asteroid field!” said Han.

“I certainly did not!”

“She did,” said Han, to Ben. “Right into it, whoosh,” he mimed the action of flying a ship and crashing. “She was trying to impress me by destroying my ship.”

She gave him a light smack on the arm. “If Uncle Chewie were here, I might let him teach you,” said Leia. “Chewie has some sense in his head.”

“Well why’d you marry such a reckless maniac?” asked Han, wrapping his arms around her from behind and nuzzling into her neck.

“Ew, gross,” said Ben. “Stop.”

“Stop what?” said Han, all innocence. 

“Stop being gross! But tell me the asteroid field story again.”

Han dished up the breakfast and they sat down. “We were evacuating the base.”

“Because _someone_ couldn’t do what he was told,” Leia interrupted. 

“And _someone,_ who was supposed to be on her transport out of there,” Han continued, “was still in the command center trying to control everything while there’s stormtroopers coming into the base.”

Ben leaned forward, eyes shining as he listened.

“So I go in there—”

“He was supposed to have left already,” said Leia.

“And it’s a good thing I hadn’t, Your Worship, isn’t it? You’re welcome. So I go in there and I grab her and put her over my shoulder—”

“No you didn’t!” said Leia, laughing. “He didn’t really do that,” she said to Ben.

“I picked her up and carried her out of there, saving her life, but what do you know, the whole ceiling caved in and I couldn’t get her to the hangar. So we went to my ship instead.”

“The Millennium Falcon?” asked Ben.

“May she rest in peace.” Han and Leia put their hands over their hearts in faux-solemnity.

“Then what?”

“Then the ship wouldn’t start,” said Leia, laughing. It hadn’t seemed funny at the time. “It just wouldn’t start! Now this man had been telling me for months that he was just about to leave, any minute, and his ship won’t even start! And the deflector shields were broken, too, if I remember.”

“Chewie’s fault, all of it,” said Han.

“Blame Chewie when he’s not even here to defend himself.” 

“Why else have a co-pilot?” said Han, and she laughed. “Well I got the ship started up and we got into the air, and everything was going great—”

“There were three star destroyers coming after us,” said Leia, “so ‘everything was going great’ is sort of relative.”

“Three?” asked Ben. “Just for one little ship?”

“Well, it was the Millennium Falcon!” said Han. “Fastest ship in the galaxy, with the best and handsomest pilot.”

“So then,” says Leia. “We get clear of the planet and we’re ready to jump to hyperspace—”

“But the hyperdrive was broken!” said Ben. “I remember this part.”

“Chewie’s fault,” said Han again.

“So your dad and Uncle Chewie go racing down to look at the hyperdrive and leave me there in the cockpit with 3PO, and there’s still Star Destroyers after us _and_ there’s asteroids everywhere; that’s one of the reasons we were on that planet, they were supposed to help us hide. And of course Dad had never let me touch the controls of his precious ship before; I’d never flown anything other than a shuttle!”

“So she crashes us right into an asteroid,” said Han. “I get this panicked call on the comm, ‘Han, save me!’—”

“It was a tiny asteroid, and I definitely did not say that,” Leia interjected.

“‘Han, save me!’ she says, so I go running back up there and everything’s a mess, she’d practically killed us all—”

“He’s exaggerating.”

“I’ve never exaggerated in my life. And then I get my stroke of genius. They’re not going to follow us into an asteroid field!”

“But they did,” said Leia.

“Yeah, yeah they did.”

“Why didn’t they just shoot you down?” asked Ben. “That’s what I would have done.”

Leia exchanged a glance with her husband. “They wanted to catch us,” she said, “not kill us.”

“How come?” 

The real answer to that wasn’t something she wanted to tell her son. This was one reason they didn’t tell these stories often: the ones they liked to tell were always too close to the things they’d rather forget. 

“For information,” she said at last. “They knew your dad and I were important, would have a lot of information.” They hadn’t actually wanted any information. Vader had just wanted to use them to get his hands on Luke. She felt the lopsided queasy feeling she always felt when she thought about Vader. Sometimes she wished that Luke had never told her.

“Then what happened?” said Ben.

“I had another stroke of genius,” said Han, “and I landed us on one of the asteroids so we could hide and fix the hyperdrive. And then your mom confessed that she was madly in love with me—”

“Liar! What happened was your dad cornered me and kissed me without even asking, which was very rude—” Han leaned over and kissed her right then, and Ben groaned. “Scoundrel,” she said when Han let her go. Her whole heart felt overflowing with love. Everything was going to be fine.

“And then,” said Han, “since we couldn’t figure out what was wrong with the hyperdrive, we got stuck together for… how long, hon?”

“Twelve weeks,” said Leia. 

“Twelve weeks of paradise,” said Han. “It felt like no time at all.”

“It was the longest twelve weeks of my life,” said Leia. “It felt like twelve years.”

“That’s how I finally got her to fall in love with me,” said Han. “All it took was being trapped alone on a ship with me for twelve weeks with no other options. You keep that in mind, son. Works every time.”

She gave him another light smack. “Don’t tell him that. I hope he’ll be a little more respectful to women than you ever were.”

“Can’t argue with success,” said Han.

“Oh yes I can. I can argue with anything. I’m a politician.”

“Never marry a politician,” Han said to Ben. “That’s my next piece of romantic advice.”

“You really are the most irritating man alive,” said Leia fondly. 

He smiled at her. “I love you, too, Princess.”


	14. the birthday party

He stood in his shitty, dark, empty apartment, and made a decision. It was time for him to get his shit together and quit just sitting around waiting to die.

Well, it was probably long past time for him to do that, but now he thought maybe he was ready to actually do it. That he was still alive when Jyn was dead still seemed outrageous, but since when did he argue with the facts? He was alive and he might as well start acting like it.

So he’d start by finding somewhere else to live.

The place he found was still small, but it had a kind of charm to it, and he got some furniture, and he even went out and found a real bed that he thought might be firm enough for him to sleep on.

It wasn’t awful. It wasn’t the little house on some rainy planet that he and Jyn were going to go to when the war ended, but it was, at least, fit for human habitation.

Mark called him once in a while, and he told him about it, and Mark said it sounded nice, and Cassian suggested, shyly, that maybe he would like to see it for himself sometime, and Mark said that sounded nice, too, so there was something to look forward to.

He did his work and he came home, and he cooked for himself and slept in his bed, which was still a little more soft and comfortable than he liked, but he thought maybe he would get used to it, and he was, while not _happy,_ at least not completely miserable. He was almost grateful that he and Leia had blown up their lives the way they had, because it had finally shaken him out of the stupor he’d been in ever since Jyn died.

It had been about a month when she called him, two days before Galactic Concordance day, the tenth anniversary of the establishment of the New Republic. He almost didn’t answer, but it was possible it was a work thing, so he did.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” said Leia. She looked beautiful. He had been avoiding even looking at pictures of her as much as possible, which was hard, since she was everywhere: the face of the rebellion, the face of Alderaan, the living symbol of hope and persistence that the New Republic trotted out to remind everyone of how hard fought the peace was. She’d never wanted to be a symbol, but someone had to do it.

“What can I do for you, Senator?” he asked. Professional. She didn’t bother trying to hide the hurt. He didn’t _want_ to hurt her. He just didn’t want to hurt himself anymore, either.

“It’s Ben’s birthday,” she said. “Concordance Day, you know.”

“Yeah,” he said. 

“Well, he’s been asking about you. He’d really like it if you came to the party. It’s tomorrow. I know it’s— he misses you, and none of this is _his_ fault. I told him you’re really busy but I promised I’d at least ask.”

He sighed. It _wasn’t_ Ben’s fault. Ben was a good kid; a little weird, but basically a good kid. Too smart for his own good; he’d figured out the truth about Cassian and Leia long before either of them had. And he’d grown up calling Cassian “uncle,” and now he was going to be ten, which was probably a big deal to him. Where Cassian grew up, ten was when the grownups started letting you use a blaster. “Okay,” he said. “When?”

“Tomorrow, thirteen hundred?” she said.

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll come.”

“Thank you,” she said, and she looked so goddamn relieved he found himself hating her for a second, and he ended the call without saying goodbye.

* * * * *

“Uncle Cassian!” yelled Ben, tearing across the yard and hurling himself at Cassian. “You came!”

“Hi,” said Cassian, surprised. Ben usually reacted to his presence with a lot less enthusiasm. “Happy birthday.”

“Where’ve you _been?_ You haven’t been here in _ages,”_ said Ben.

“Just busy,” he said. He had not been expecting this. He didn’t even think Ben particularly cared about him. A complex, confusing emotion rose up in his chest. It reminded him of how he’d felt the first time he saw Ben, a month old, and how it was the first time after Jyn’s death that he had felt anything that wasn’t numb, black despair. He resolved to think about it later, which was probably a step forward from resolving to never think about it again.

“You and Mom had a fight about something, didn’t you?” said Ben. “She won’t admit it and I know you won’t either, but that’s got to be it.”

Cassian ignored the question. “Happy birthday, Ben.”

“It’s really tomorrow,” he said, “but everyone’s always busy on my actual birthday. I hate having to share.”

And there was Ben’s father, walking over. Cassian was deeply grateful for all the years of practice that made him such a good liar. “Well there he is,” said Solo. “Where’ve you been hiding, General?”

“Han,” said Cassian. “Things have been busy.”

“If you’re busy, that usually means bad news,” said Han.

Cassian smiled politely, thinking shut the fuck up you smug dick, and wishing he hadn’t come.

He only stayed for a little while, and then tried to make his escape without being noticed, but Han noticed, of course fucking Han noticed, and followed him out. “Leaving so soon?”

“Got work,” he said.

“Really, on a holiday weekend. You’re so dedicated to your work, Cass. Always admired that about you. So before you go, why don’t you tell me what happened between you and my wife?”

He didn’t flinch. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Han.”

“Hey,” said Han, “give me a little credit here. I may not be in intel, but I’m not an idiot, either. I can tell when something’s upset my wife.”

“Maybe you should ask her,” said Cassian.

“Maybe I will. I just thought I’d give you the opportunity to explain yourself first.”

“If you’ve got something to say,” said Cassian, cool, “why don’t you just say it.”

“You think I haven’t noticed how much time you spend around my girl? Just inseparable, you two, weren’t you? And now all of a sudden you’re not speaking to each other. Weird.”

“Do you really want to do this _now,_ Solo? At your kid’s birthday party?”

“When would be a better time? Should I call your office and make an appointment?”

“I really don’t care what you do,” he said, and before he thought better of it, he added, “if you’re so worried about who she’s spending time with, maybe you shouldn’t disappear for months at a time and leave her to raise your kid all by herself.” 

For half a moment he thought Solo might actually take a swing at him, but he just issued a fake-sounding laugh and said, “I’ll see you around, Cass. Thanks for coming to the party.”


	15. I just want to hear you admit it

So that could have gone better, but it could have gone a lot worse, too. Instead of going home right away, he took a walk. It was a nice day, and people were getting things set up for the celebrations tomorrow. It would be a big one. Ten years. Every year the organizers tried to rope Cassian, as the sole remaining member of Rogue One, into doing something: giving a speech or receiving a medal, or sitting on some float in the parade. Every year he said no, and every year he sat in the dark in his apartment and ignored the whole thing. Concordance Day was the anniversary of Jyn’s death. He never felt like celebrating.

For now he wasn’t going to worry about this Han Solo problem. Solo would be gone again soon enough, and Cassian was going to continue keeping his distance from Leia, and everything would be fine. Or maybe Leia would break down and tell him the truth, and he’d come find Cassian and fight him. That was fine, too. They would probably both find it pretty satisfying to kick the shit out of each other, in some location _other_ than Ben’s birthday party. Maybe they should have kicked the shit out of each other when they first met; it would have saved everyone a lot of trouble.

Even if Leia did tell Han, he didn’t think they’d get a divorce, and he wasn’t even sure that he wanted them to. They’d work it out.

It would be nice if he had someone he could talk to about this, but even if he had another friend besides Mark, which he didn’t, it was too sensitive to be shared. Leia was a senator, and all three of them were rebellion heroes, although Cassian did his utmost to keep the spotlight away from him. The Holonet tabloids would love it.

So it was yet another secret in his life full of secrets.

When he did make it home after wandering the streets for a while, he saw that Mark had called while he was out, so he called him back.

“Hey,” said Mark. “So this is last minute, but my sister decided she wants to go to the Concordance Day party on Chandrila, so we’re actually… here.”

“You’re on Chandrila?” he said, smiling.

“Yeah. We got in a couple hours ago. I was hoping maybe—”

“I’d love to,” said Cassian. “Yes. Anytime.”

“Yeah?” Mark was grinning.

“Yeah. Wait, do you mean just us or am I meeting your sister, because—”

“I mean you can if you want, but I wasn’t expecting that, no." 

“I wish I’d known you were coming,” said Cassian. “I’d have dragged you over to Leia’s kid’s birthday party with me and saved myself a lot of hassle.”

“That actually sounds incredibly awkward, but thank you.”

“It _was_ incredibly awkward. It would have been less awkward if you were there.”

“For _you,_ maybe. So are you doing anything now?”

“Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Come over.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

* * * * *

The knock at the door came late at night. They were just sitting around. It had been a pleasant evening. They’d fooled around a little, and then they’d gone out in search of food, and they’d had a couple of drinks and then come back and fooled around a little more, and now they were on Cassian’s new couch, a little tipsy and giggly, and Cassian was thinking, maybe this could be okay. Maybe he really could figure out how to be a normal person. Maybe he could even eventually figure out how to be happy.

Then there was the knock at the door, and Cassian sighed and considered pretending he wasn’t home, but he may as well get it over with, so he opened the door and Han Solo punched him in the face.

“Hey Han,” he said, holding his eye. “How’s it going?”

“You son of a bitch,” said Han.

“What the fuck?” Mark jumped to his feet and started over, rolling up his sleeves. Maybe he was Festian after all.

“Mark, it’s fine, it’s okay,” said Cassian.

“Oh,” said Han. “I didn’t realize you had company.”

“Well, you never were one to wait for all the facts before acting,” said Cassian. “Mark, this is Han Solo. Leia’s husband. This is Marcius.”

“Hi,” said Han, sounding confused.

“Hey, so is that going to satisfy you or do we have to really get into it?” asked Cassian. “Because I’ll fight you if you really want, but I’d rather not.”

Han looked like he didn’t know what to say. “I, uh…”

“Okay,” said Mark. “If you guys aren’t going to kill each other, I think I’m going to head back to my hotel." He looked at Cassian’s face. “You okay?” he said quietly.

“It’s fine,” said Cassian. “I’ll see you later.”

“Put some ice on that,” Mark said, gently stroking his fingers over the place where Han had hit him, and then he leaned forward and kissed him lightly on the mouth, and left.

Han’s mouth was hanging open with confusion. “So are you going to hit me again or what?” said Cassian.

“Uh, I guess not,” said Han. “Is that guy— are you—?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Come in if you’re coming in. You’re my second guest ever. How drunk are you right now?”

“Not very. A little bit.”

“She know you’re here?”

“I didn’t exactly tell her, but probably, yeah.”

“You couldn’t resist, huh? You’ve had a whole month to come hit me, Solo, and you waited until Ben’s birthday?”

“Hey,” snapped Han. “You shut your mouth. That is _my_ son. Not yours. And she is _my_ wife, and I just want to hear you say it. That’s it. I just want to hear you admit it. Did you sleep together?”

He closed his eyes and sighed, sitting down again, exhausted. “Yes. One time. And I’ve barely spoken to her since.” He opened his eyes again. “It was a shitty fucking thing to do and I knew it, and I’m sorry. Just don’t blame her, because it was my fault.”

“That’s funny,” said Han. “She said it was her fault.” He collapsed onto the couch, like he just couldn’t hold himself upright anymore. “I can’t believe you actually admitted it. I thought I was going to have to beat it out of you. Good thing you never got picked up by Vader.”

“It’s never going to happen again,” said Cassian. 

“It better fucking not.” He ran a hand through his hair. “It was really just one time? You never did it before, like before we knew each other?”

“You mean when she was a teenager? No, _Han,_ I did not have sex with a teenage girl when I was twenty-five. I know _you_ don’t see anything wrong with that—”

“Hey, fuck you,” Han interrupted.

“Am I wrong? You were all over that poor girl and she was _nineteen years old._ You were _thirty._ She was a kid! She was a traumatized kid, and you harassed her for so long you somehow convinced her that you were the best she could do—”

“You do want to get hit again, don’t you?” said Han, moving to stand up again.

“And she _loves you,”_ said Cassian. “She loves you so goddamn much and you can’t even be bothered to stay on the same _planet_ as her, you just expect her to wait around for when you feel like it’s _convenient_ to have a wife again, when you should be on your fucking knees every day thanking the fucking universe or the Force or whatever that a woman like that is even willing to _look_ at you.”

Han grabbed him by the shirt and yanked him to his feet before punching him again, in the stomach this time, knocking the breath out of him. He lost his balance and fell to the floor. He had forgotten how unpleasant it was to get hit. Weren’t they a little old for this?

“Get up,” said Han. “At least hit me back.”

Cassian didn’t get up, but when he got his breath back he kept talking. “And none of this would have happened,” he said, in a low, fast voice, “if you hadn’t gotten the love of my goddamn life killed because they put you in command of a mission you had no business leading—”

“Your intel was bad,” yelled Han. “How is that _my_ fault? They knew we were coming! The whole thing was a trap! Maybe if _you_ had done _your_ job—”

“You’re a pilot!” Cassian shouted. “You never should have been on that moon! And then you spent the whole night partying when you should have been doing recon—”

“Partying? They tried to eat me! And if I hadn’t been ‘partying’ with them we never would have gotten the shield down and we _all_ would have died, including Jyn, and it would have been for fuck all.”

“Don’t you say her name,” said Cassian quietly. He was exhausted. He was a little drunk. He was sick of this whole argument. “Just… get out of here. Just go back to your wife you don’t appreciate and your son who barely knows you, and just leave me alone. I don’t want anything to do with any of you anymore.”


	16. Han & Leia

She hadn’t been expecting Han to come back, at least not tonight. She’d broken down and told him after all, almost as soon as he’d asked. Amazing. She hadn’t broken when Darth Vader had tortured her, when she was only nineteen, but she couldn’t keep a secret like this from her husband, it turned out, even when it would have been better for everyone if she had.

The party had been over and everyone had gone home, and Ben had, reluctantly, gone to bed, well after his usual bedtime. They were settling in to go to bed themselves, and Han had said, “so what happened with Andor?”

“What do you mean?” she’d asked.

“I mean, today was the first time he’s been over here since I got back, and he only stayed an hour and didn’t look at you once. He usually looks at you a lot, all longingly.”

“No he doesn’t,” said Leia.

“He does too. You think I can’t tell what pining looks like? I pined after you for years, so I think I can recognize it.”

“Han,” she said, feeling a little sick to her stomach. Had  _ everyone _ known, except for the two of them?

“So now he won’t even look at you, so what happened? Did you guys have sex or what?”

All the blood drained out of her face and she just stared at him in horror, and then his face fell and he said, miserably, “I was  _ joking. _ Did you?”

She nodded, unable to speak.

“Tell me this is a joke,” said Han. “And I’ll believe you, I promise. Just tell me I’m crazy.”

“Han,” she said. “It… It was a mistake, it was a stupid awful mistake and I regret it so much and I’m so, so sorry. I love you, Han, I love you so much and I’m such an idiot.”

He’d just looked at her, and then he’d said, “I have to go,” and he’d turned around and walked out of the room and then out the front door.

She wasn’t expecting him to come home, so she was surprised when he appeared, rummaging around for ice in the freezer. “Hey,” he said.

“You didn’t kill him, did you?” she asked.

“No, but I might have broken my hand on his face.” He wrapped a towel full of ice around his hand.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“What’s ‘okay’ under the circumstances, Leia?” He sat down at the kitchen table. “Do you think I don’t appreciate you?”

“Did he say that?”

“Yeah.”

“He doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” she said. “I was just… lonely.”

“And he was there.”

“He was there,” she echoed.

“Why didn’t you just  _ tell  _ me you were so unhappy? I would have come home if you’d asked me to.”

“I didn’t know that I  _ was  _ unhappy,” she said. “I guess I was just trying so hard to be okay with it. I wanted  _ you  _ to be happy. You never want to stay in one place for long. You get bored. I didn’t want you to feel like you were trapped.”

“I could never feel trapped if I was with you.”

“Yes you would,” she said, tearing up as she sat down at the table across from him. “You would, and you’d start to hate me for it and then you’d go and you’d be  _ really gone.” _

“Sweetheart,” he said, “I wouldn’t. We could have figured something out.”

“Is it too late?” she said in a small voice. “To figure something out?” She braced herself for the answer to be yes. Yes it was too late, yes this betrayal was unforgivable, yes their marriage was over.

He reached his good hand out to her. “I don’t know,” he said. “Do you want to try?”

“Yes,” she said softly. “I want to try.”

“Then let’s try.” He sighed heavily. “I love you. I always have. I’m not even mad at you, sweetheart, I’m just  _ sad. _ I just wish you’d talked to me, given me a chance.”

“I know,” she said. “I’m sorry, Han. I wish I had, too. I wish I’d done a lot of things differently.”

“Me too,” said Han. “You know all this time I thought it was  _ better  _ if I wasn’t around too much, because then you might figure out that you’re too good for me. If I left, you could miss me.”

“I did miss you. I do miss you. I miss you all the time and I should have told you.”

“Come here,” he said, tugging gently at her hand. She stood up and let him pull her over and down into his lap.

“Let me see your hand,” she said.

“You’re seeing it,” he said.

“The other one,” she said, unwrapping the towel and setting the ice aside. She inspected it: it was swollen and tender. She kissed it. “You do have a way with people,” she said. She wrapped it in the ice again and then turned to look at his face. “You don’t look like you got hit.”

“Of course not,” said Han. “It’s me. Come here,” he said again, and kissed her, and she was crying again.

“I love you,” she whispered, holding his face in her hands, and he hesitated for a moment, like he wasn’t quite sure what he wanted to say, and then he said the two words she most wanted to hear him say, and she cried and he cried, too, and when they’d cried themselves out, they went to bed. He held her hand in his, against his chest, and she loved him with all her heart. They fell asleep like that, hand in hand. She believed that they could find a way through this. They  _ would  _ find a way through this, together. 


	17. Concordance Day

He spent Concordance Day alone, like he always did. He could have gone with Mark and his sister to the celebrations if he’d wanted to, but it was still Jyn’s anniversary, and he didn’t think he’d ever feel like celebrating that. Even if he had, even if he’d felt like he wanted to meet Mark’s sister, he didn’t think he’d have wanted to meet her looking like he’d just gotten punched in the face.

When he woke up in the morning, he took Jyn’s crystal and put the chain over his head, and then lay in the quiet of his room, touching the crystal absently and thinking about her.

When he’d been unconscious, after Scarif, Jyn hadn’t left his side. She sat there all that time he was in the tank, and then she sat next to his bed, and when he finally opened his eyes, her face was the first thing he saw. He hadn’t, at the time, known how to name what he felt when he saw her, but looking back, he thought that was when he fell in love with her. He’d been falling, but that was the moment he landed.

He’d held her hand all that time, all those long miserable days he was trapped in that bed and she never left his side, sleeping curled up in the chair by his bed. And that first time she kissed him, so light it was barely there. He’d asked her to kiss him, because the Death Star was on its way to find them again, for the third time, and if they were going to die he wanted to kiss her first.

How could she be gone? He still felt like any day might be the day she came back. Today made eleven years since she died on Endor. Everything she’d lived through, everything she’d survived, and then one stormtrooper gets off a lucky shot and she’s just gone.

“That’s a lot of responsibility to give me,” he remembered Jyn saying. “I don’t want to be the reason you want to live. Because I want you to live, too, even if something happens to me.”

Eleven years, he thought.

He got up, ate breakfast, stood at the window and looked at the people below. It was early, but the streets were already filling up with people on their way to the parade route. Kids running ahead of their parents, excited and laughing. Kids who’d never known the Empire at all, didn’t even know what they were celebrating.

If Jyn had lived, he wondered, would they have had a child? It was the sort of question he’d never had the chance to ask her: did she want that? It was the sort of question he’d never had the chance to ask himself: did  _ he  _ want that? He tried to picture it. He and Jyn, in a house somewhere on some rainy planet, with a child. Maybe more than one; why not? Maybe a girl and a boy, and they would both look like her. Beautiful.

Would they have been happy like that? Who knows. Maybe. 

Their children would never have had to learn to build an IED or where the weakest parts of a stormtrooper’s armor were. They never would have had to learn how to walk through snow without leaving a trail for your enemies to follow. Their children wouldn’t have  _ had  _ enemies. They would have been children, real children, not little soldier children waiting to turn ten so they could finally use a blaster.

Mark called him, “just to make sure you didn’t get murdered,” and he smiled and said he was fine and he would talk to him later, and then he lay in his bed for a little while longer, thinking about the war, and Jyn, and all the people he’d somehow outlived. None of it was ever going to make sense or be right. Since the day the clone army landed, his life had been one catastrophe after the next, but somehow he was still here.

It wasn’t a bad day. It was peaceful. He wore Jyn’s necklace all day, tucked inside his shirt like she’d worn it, the crystal resting next to his heart. He watched a little bit of the festivities on the Holonet, watched Leia with her family as she prepared to make her speech. She looked like she always did when she made a public appearance like this: serene and distant, like some ethereal being, nothing like the warm, laughing woman he knew.

He wondered how long it would take before it didn’t hurt to see her face. She’d been his best and only friend for so long.

He’d never really cared for speeches. They always sounded hollow and pointless to his ears. He turned off the feed before she was done, and he lay on his couch and stared into space.

When the fireworks started, he hid in the closet and put a pillow over his head to muffle the sound. They did fireworks every year, and every year he thought this would be the year that it wouldn’t bother him. It had been something like thirty-five years since the morning he woke up to that sound: the distant booming that he hadn’t known yet was the beginning of the bombings that would destroy his home and kill his mother and end his childhood abruptly. And now every year for ten years he’d heard the sound again, and even though he knew it was just fireworks, every year he wanted to run, wanted to find a safe place underground to hide in case the buildings started to come down.

Next year, Jyn, he thought, running his fingers over the engraving on the crystal, we’ll go offworld for Concordance Day. We’ll go somewhere there’s no fireworks.

* * * * *

He dreamed about her that night, and about that little house they never got to live in. She was looking out the window at the rain. “I love rain,” she said.

“I know,” he said.

“Maybe it’ll snow,” she said.

“Maybe it will.” They stood there, hand in hand, and watched the rain fall. “This would have been a good life,” he said.

“You would have gotten bored,” said Jyn.

“I don’t think I would have,” he said. “Not if I were with you.”

“We would have fought all the time,” she said, smiling.

“No,” he said. “Do you think so?”

“I guess we’ll never know.”

“I guess not,” he said. 

“Do you think you’re finally ready?” she asked.

“Ready for what?”

“To start living again?”

“I guess so,” he said. “If I have to.”

She laughed. She was so pretty when she laughed.

“I’m never going to forget you, though,” he said.

“Of course not,” she said. “I never thought you would. You were the one who was afraid of that.” She looked out over the green rolling hills, everything wet and shining. “It really is beautiful here. I think it  _ is  _ going to snow, look.”

A few small flakes drifted by the window.

“We’ll see each other again,” said Jyn, and she kissed his cheek and went outside, and the snow began to fall thick and fast and beautiful, and she walked away into it, leaving no footprints behind, and he woke up feeling more peaceful, and  _ safer, _ than he had in a long time. Maybe ever.

* * * * *

The next day he went to see Mark at the hotel.

“I like you a lot,” said Cassian.

“But?” said Mark.

He smiled, looking down. “I like you a lot,” he said again.  _ “And _ I’m trying to be more… thoughtful. About things.”

“That’s good,” said Mark.

“So I think it would be a mistake. For me to jump into something serious with you. I need to get my shit together first.”

“You really do need to get your shit together,” said Mark, but he said it kindly.

“Yeah,” said Cassian. “I’ve needed to for a long time.”

“Well if you ever do,” said Mark. “You know where to find me.” 

Cassian smiled again. “I wouldn’t wait around for me, if I were you.”

“Oh, I won’t,” said Mark. 

“I’m really glad I met you,” said Cassian, and Mark kissed him, and then he left.

* * * * *

“I don’t know if I really believe in this stuff,” he said. He ran his thumb over the engraved surface of Jyn’s crystal, trying to keep himself calm.

“That’s all right,” replied the woman. “A lot of people are pretty uncomfortable or skeptical when they first get here.”

“I almost didn’t come.”

“Why did you?”

“I don’t know. People keep telling me I should try it.”

She smiled. “Is that the only reason? I don’t know if you’ll get much out of the experience if that’s the reason you’re here.”

He shook his head. “I know I have to do  _ something. _ So if it might help, I can at least try it.”

“And what would it mean for it to help?”

He shook his head again, unable to answer. What kind of question was that? What would it mean for it to help? “I don’t…” He fell quiet, focusing for a moment just on the feel of the crystal in his hand. 

“It’s all right if you’re not sure yet,” she said. “We can figure it out as we go. Why don’t you tell me a little bit about why you’re here?”

He nodded, took a deep breath, and tried to decide where to start.


End file.
